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IN THE 

Alaska-Yukon 
Gamelands 



By 
J. A. MCGUIRE 

Introduction hy 

WILLIAM T. HORNADAY 

{Photographs by the author) 




CINCINNATI 

STEWART KIDD COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 






COPYRIGHT, I92I 

STEWART & KIDD COMPANY 



y^ll Rights Reserved 
COPYRIGHT IN ENGLAND 



Set up and Electroplated by The Abingdon Press 
Published April. 1921 



m 18 1921 
g)Cl.A611691 



THOSE PRINCELY SPIRITS 

OF OUR LAND WHO HAVE GIVEN, 

IN TIME AND MONEY, THAT OUR PRECIOUS 

fotlb life 

MAY BE PRESERVED TO POSTERITY 

THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED BY 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

Introduction, by William T. Hornaday - - 9 

I Enroute to the Hunting Grounds - - - - 15 

II In the Goat and Glacier Fields ----- 45 

III Russell Glacier ----------yi 

rV Sheep — Both White and Dark — a Digression - 81 

V On the Sheep Ranges -------- loi 

VI Sheep, Moose and Caribou - - - - --119 

VII Moose and Caribou ---_--_« 141 

VIII Rams and Caribou ---__--. i6j 

IX A New Species of Caribou — Rangifer mcguirei 179 

X Homeward Bound --------187 

XI Outfitting Hints -- 199 

XII Afterthoughts -- 214 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

No. Page 

1. Good-bye to home for seventy days - - - i8 

2. Our first impression of traveling on a glacier — 

the Nizina. Going goat hunting this morning 58 

3. Scene of a busy camp. Everybody must work 

during packing-up time ------68 

4. Crossing, 'midst grand surroundings, a glacial 

stream, the Frederika ------- j^ 

5. Cliffs, canyons and hills of the glacial moraine 

— Russell Glacier --------78 

6. Upper picture — A "kettle-biled" lunch in the 

caribou country. Middle — How a sheep 
specimen was damaged by eagles. Lower — 
A large white sheep -------88 

7. The beautiful Kletsan camp on White River - 96 

8. The "Too-Much" Johnson cabin, Kletsan Creek 106 

9. Upper picture — The author and 45-inch moose. 

Middle — Grayling fishing on Harris Creek. 
Lower — A fly came in handy to sleep under 
at Skolai Pass _--..---- 144 

10. Skinning specimens in the taxidermist's tent - 152 

11. Left picture — Mr. James and his night abode 

for six weeks. Middle — The author and a 
nice specimen of white sheep. Right — A 
horse falls in a crevice on Nizina Glacier - 170 

12. Group of rangifer mcguirei - - - - - -182 

13. Type specimen of rangifer mcguirei - - - - 184 

14. The singular dentition found in rangifer 

mcguirei -----------190 

15. Nearing the end of Russell Glacier, twenty- 

four horses in line -------- 194 

16. Route traveled by the party in Alaska and 

Yukon Territory - - - - - - - -210 



INTRODUCTION 

'VTlEWED from any side or angle, a long, 
arduous and costly expedition from Denver 
to the north-eastern boundary of Alaska in the 
interest of museum groups of wild animals well 
may be regarded as a tribute to the Museum 
Group Idea. Moreover, as hunting trips go, 
that kind of "game" is well "worth the candle." 

Up to this time, the term "habitat group" is 
of new coinage, and very generally unknown. 
In a few words, it stands for an assemblage of 
important zoological specimens that have been 
mounted by the taxidermist's art, surrounded by 
natural or artificial trees, plants, flowers, rocks, 
land and water, either drawn from or made to 
represent the natural haunts of the beasts or 
birds, and displayed in a museum case specially 
designed for it. 

The animal specimens must be the finest of 
fine. The accessories must be provided lavishly, 
and with consummate skill. Each large group 
of this kind represents a tour de force ^ and many 
of them are masterpieces of real art. They are 
expected to endure for a century or longer, and 
to interest and instruct millions of people long 
after the species represented have been exter- 
rninated by the grinding progress of modern 
civilization. 



INTRODUCTION 

Many sportsmen have gone far, risked much 
and toiled long in the procuring of rare animals 
and accessories for habitat groups. In the list 
of unpaid men who have done so, we find the 
names of Theodore Roosevelt, Col. Cecil Clay, 
John M. Phillips, Childs Frick, Richard Tjader, 
C. V. R. Radcliffe, W. S. Rainsford and the 
author of this volume. 

Work of this kind appeals particularly to 
sportsmen with an inborn love for creative work, 
and delight in the construction of fine, monu- 
mental things out of the raw materials. Mr. 
McGuire first **tasted blood" in the making of 
museum groups when he hunted and killed the 
largest specimens for the splendid group of silver- 
tip grizzly bears that now is a source of pride to 
his home museum in Denver. Beyond a doubt, 
it was the joyous contemplation of that master- 
piece, so ably and satisfactorily wrought out 
by and under the direction of Director Jesse D. 
Figgins, that inspired the trip over the long trail 
to Alaska and Yukon Territory, and here do I 
ask this question: 

What finer sentiment could inspire any trip in 
quest of big game than the intent to bring into 
existence two or three great habitat groups to 
entertain and to educate Americans, old and 
young, long after Time has overtaken the gallant 
hunter, and his rifle has been hung up forever? 

I have seen "the White River country" of 
North-eastern Alaska and Yukon Territory re- 

lO 



INTRODUCTION 

ferred to as "the last big-game hunting ground 
of North America." Can it be true that this 
claim, or feeling, constituted Mr. McGuire*s 
reason for going over 300 miles from salt water to 
look for big game? Where are the giant moose, 
the Kenai caribou and the white sheep of the 
Kenai Peninsula? Where are the moose that 
were so big and so abundant in the Susitna val- 
ley only twenty years ago? Where are the white 
sheep of the Matinuska, common enough for all 
purposes in 1900 and after? 

But let us not say that those hunting grounds 
are one and all "shot out," or forever closed to 
the sportsman. Not until we are compelled, do 
we admit the state of "no game." Let us beheve 
that the lure of the McGuire party was the really 
magnificent wide-horned breed of white sheep 
that is found, in numbers really worth while, in 
the White River country. We will not soon for- 
get our astonishment when we first saw a collec- 
tion of five wide-horned sheep heads from that 
region. We are glad that Mr. McGuire^s party 
obtained fine specimens of that very interesting 
development of Ovis dalli, 

I find Mr. McGuire's story and pictures more 
interesting than any mere moving-picture trav- 
els. His graphic and conscientious pen gives us 
the action, and his pictures furnish the local 
color so dear to the heart of the reader. Jaded 
indeed must be the mind that cannot turn from 
the worries and the care of the daily business 



INTRODUCTION 

life to this stirring portrayal of travel and adven- 
ture, in a strange and wild land after strange 
wild beasts. 

We are glad that the Colorado Museum of 
Natural History is prosperous, and in need of 
the groups that intrepid sportsmen and skilled 
taxidermists together can create. We are glad 
that this trip was made, and that Mr. McGuire 
has given us this admirable account of it. The 
personnel of the expedition seems to have been 
excellently composed. The local cooperation 
was gratifying and effective. The supply of 
game was sufficient, and the killing was done 
with commendable moderation. Such toll of 
wild hfe as was taken by that party does not 
spell extermination; and we hold that there is no 
higher use to which a dead wild animal can be 
devoted than to mount it for permanent exhibi- 
tion in a free public museum. 

Incidentally, the pictures of far northern scen- 
ery, life and character herein set forth are dis- 
tinctly educational, and to the honor and glory 
of Alaska and Yukon Territory. They draw us 
nearer to our great Arctic province, whose people 
now are somewhat irritated and inclined to chafe 
over the neglectful treatment that for forty years 
and more has been bestowed upon that far-away 
land. The Congress and people of the United 
States never have taken Alaska with sufficient 
seriousness; and the people of Alaska have been 
strangely slow and backward in setting forth 

12 



INTRODUCTION 

before the American people their governmental 
and administrative rights and needs. 

Far too long and too much has Alaska been 
left to work out her own salvation. Now Alas- 
kans are beginning to clamor for the privileges 
of statehood — long before their territorial re- 
sources are sufficient for Alaska's many needs. 

It is the duty of Congress, and of all fair- 
minded Americans, to take a proper amount of 
interest in Alaska, and put Alaska in the list of 
well-financed and well-managed political and 
economic units of the American possessions. 

William T. Hornaday. 



13 



First Chapter 



ENROUTE TO THE HUNTING 
GROUNDS 



THE HEART OF THE SOURDOUGH 

There where the mighty mountains bare their fangs unto the moon. 
There where the sullen sun-dogs glare in the snow-bright, bitter noon. 
And the glacier-glutted streams sweep down at the clarion call of June. 

There where the livid tundras keep their tryst with the tranquil snows ; 
There where the silences are spawned, and the light of hell-fire flows 
Into the bowl of the midnight sky, violet, amber and rose. 

There where the rapids churn and roar, and the ice-floes bellowing run ; 
Where the tortured, twisted rivers of blood rush to the setting sun — 
I've packed my kit and I'm going, boys, ere another day is done. 

— Robert Service, 



FIRST CHAPTER 
ENROUTE TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 

T HOPE to be pardoned for entertaining no 
^ ambition, in this work, to produce an ex- 
haustive treatise on the hunting possibilities 
of either Alaska or Yukon Territory; for to 
emerge from a two-months' trip into the wilds of 
that country and be able to write a history of it 
would be about as impossible as to return from a 
month's visit to Timbuctoo and pen an accurate 
chronicle of the whole African race. First, the 
coast and interior of Alaska are about as dissimi- 
lar as the two sides of the Cascade Mountains 
of Washington — the coast being warm, wet and 
woodsy, while the interior is dry and sunny — 
and in winter fiercely cold, sometimes reaching 
down to the very chilly level of 75 degrees below 
zero. For 200 miles inland this rain belt reaches, 
and thru its width one encounters ferns, vines 
and underbrush to an almost impenetrable de- 
gree — where bears, berries and the usual aquatic 
plants and fowls are numerous. Here on the 
coast bears and ducks furnish the sport for the 
hunter — and no "milk-and-water" Nimrod is he 
who braves the elements and the hard traveling 

17 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

conditions usually found here. It takes a man 
of strong heart and stout Hmb to stalk the bear 
and shoot the duck in this labyrinth of vine and 
shrub entanglement in the rain and snow, which 
are so prevalent here. Seattle with her thirty- 
four inches of precipitation a year seems like an 
arid country when compared with Ketchikan, 
Juneau and Cordova, each of which piles up any- 
where from 125 to 175 inches a year; while Colo- 
rado, with her fifteen inches of moisture, is in- 
deed **bone-dry" in comparison. A school 
teacher at Ketchikan recently was explaining 
about the Flood, saying that it rained for forty 
days and forty nights, and that all on the earth 
were drowned except those in the ark. One lit- 
tle child spoke up, saying no one could make him 
believe that story. *'Why?'' asked the teacher. 
"Because," said the boy, "it's been raining here 
every day the last ten years and nobody's been 
drowned yet.'* 

The Colorado Museum of Natural History, 
Denver, fostering a well-founded notion that it 
should be second to no other such institution in 
the West or Middle West, and harboring within 
its organization some of America's greatest nat- 
uralists, philanthropists and sportsmen, finished, 
during the past three years, a beautiful and com- 
modious wing to its already magnificent struc- 
ture in Denver's City Park (a gift from Mrs. 
Helen Standley — while Harry James and his sis- 
ter, Mrs. Lemen, have donated $100,000 for a 

18 




>> 

CO 

c 

> 






o 



ENROUTE TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 

similar wing on the south side of the building). 
And in order that this wing or the cases provided 
to be set in it should not go unadorned, the mu- 
seum board, thru its very efficient director, Jesse 
D. Figgins, appointed Harry C. James and the 
writer to head an expedition to Alaska and Yu- 
kon Territory for the purpose of collecting some 
mammal groups suitable to fill the new wing. 
So, armed with sundry licenses, permits and 
plenary portfolios from the United States, Alas- 
kan and Yukon governments (to say nothing of 
divers big guns and hundreds of shells of very sub- 
stantial power and velocity), we boarded a Union 
Pacific train in Denver on the evening of July 27, 
191 8, bound for Seattle. Added to our hunting 
party — which was composed of Mr. James, his 
son William, and the writer — was Al Rogers, 
the museum taxidermist, whose duty it was to 
take care of the specimens secured on the trip. 
A two-and-a-half-day streak along smooth 
rails landed our party of four in Seattle, where 
we met John H. Bunch, the Sequoian chief of 
the Alaska Steamship Company's destinies in 
that district; George Allen, the vim-and- vigor 
merchant of that burg, and C. C. Filson, the 
outing goods outfitter and manufacturer of the 
well-known Filson Cruiser Shirt. These genial 
gentlemen seemed to lose all interest in their 
business, their families and in their religion, 
when we struck the city, for they gave up every- 
thing for our comfort and amusement. 

19 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

The time passed quickly on the good ship 
Alaska (of the Alaska Steamship Line) from 
Seattle as far as Skagway, the short stops at the 
latter point, at Ketchikan and Juneau inter- 
posing a lively diversion from the quiet roll of 
the boat up the Inside Passage. Singing, danc- 
ing, cards, lectures, sourdough talks and tete-a- 
tete parties formed absorbing amusement for the 
passengers while going up. Prof. Herschel C. 
Parker, of Mount McKinley climbing fame, was 
on board, and in a stump speech told us of the 
experiences of Bellmore Brown and himself 
while climbing the great mountain. Governor 
Riggs and wife boarded the boat at Juneau, and 
from there to Cordova were passengers with us. 
Other notable personages on the boat were 
Thomas J. Corcoran, a big-game hunter, of Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio, and two of his guides (Archie Mac- 
Lennan and Frank Williams); Dr. George Curtis 
Martin, of the U. S. Geological Survey, who has 
made annual trips to Alaska in the interest of 
the government for more than a dozen years; 
and C. C. Georgeson, D.Sc, agronomist in charge 
of Alaska experimental stations at Sitka — a 
truly representative and brainy aggregation of 
men. 

A whale spouted 200 yards away to the lar- 
board as we cut thru the waters after leaving 
Dixon's Entrance. I was one of those lucky 
enough to see the monster perform. Clear skies 
and favorable winds were with us until after 

20 



ENROUTE TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 

passing Cape Spencer, lying beyond Skagway. 
At this point our boat took to the open sea, leav- 
ing the protective islands, behind which she had 
quietly glided almost continually since leaving 
Seattle. And right here is where one of the most 
malicious attempts to swamp a boat that ever 
occurred was almost pulled off by a sub-sea 
"force." Before we could collect our thoughts, 
it seemed, Old Neptune took a dive under our 
boat, succeeding, within four inches, of upsetting 
the craft. I was in my stateroom at the time. 
Harry James was telling some ladies — and their 
husbands — (while seated in a very cozy corner of 
the aft deck) the difference between raising muf- 
fins in a high altitude and raising hirsute locks 
on a billiard ball; Rogers was singing some pretty 
things to a pretty girl from Spokane, while Will- 
iam James, firmly braced against the corner rail- 
ing of his seat on the main deck, was an unwilling 
listener to the cooings of a widow from Walla 
Walla. As before stated, I was in my stateroom, 
where I should have been, at the time, most 
likely writing a prelude to this story. (Or, pos- 
sibly, I was penciling a preamble to the sermon 
that the minister was to preach on arrival at 
Cordova. My memory is greatly at fault now, 
owing to the shock received.) At any rate, I re- 
member what happened afterward. It was 
about 9:30 in the evening, and as Old Nep made 
his first dive I was precipitated with much force 
and violence against the bed railing, and as he 

21 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

dove back again I felt myself flung against the 
opposite wall. It seemed my feet couldn't travel 
fast enough to keep up with my body, the result 
being that I was recklessly tossed hither and 
thither until the crust of my anatomy and my 
wearing apparel looked more like a shredded 
laundry basket than a human shell and a coil of 
clothes. It's a good thing my supper had already 
digested. I was being juggled about the state- 
room much like a fly in a cream separator when 
the door opened and the Captain's smiling face 
intruded: 

*'Come down to the dining room and have a 
little spread with me, and you'll feel better," he 
said. "It's my birthday, and I'm asking several 
of the passengers down." 

I threw myself out the door and tried to follow 
him. It seemed really unnecessary for us to de- 
scend the stairs to the dining room, as the floor 
of that room came up to meet us as we started 
down. As we all sat at the Captain's table he 
said: **I hope all twenty-five of you will have a 
pleasant trip, and that this assembly of twenty- 
four will be much benefited by the voyage. I 
look upon these twenty- two smiling faces as a 
father upon his family, for I am responsible for 
the safety of this group of seventeen. I hope all 
fourteen of you will join me in drinking a toast to 
a merry trip. I believe that we eight are most 
congenial, and I applaud the judgment which 
chose these three persons for my table. You and 

22 



ENROUTE TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 

I, my dear sir, are — there, steward, clear away 
and bring me fish." It may safely be assumed, 
from my behavior on this boat, that I was not 
the **my dear sir" referred to by the captain (as 
I didn't remain that long), nor the designer of 
this yarn, either. 

All next day I lay in my berth — not well 
enough to eat, and not quite sick enough to die. 
The members of our party were all better sailors 
than I, for I don't believe one of them took sick. 
I was just a little sorry, too, that some of the 
boys couldn't experience one of those fulsome 
uproars that I felt, if only by way of diversion. 
It helped my feelings a little, however, when they 
informed me that the dining room had very few 
patrons that day. 

On August 7th, at lo a. m., after something 
like six days on the boat from Seattle, we landed 
at Cordova. I stood on deck watching the spec- 
tators at the dock, all curiously scrutinizing the 
passengers, as we were being pulled up to the 
pier. The Home Guards, composed of a score of 
stalwart, splendid, manly specimens, stood on 
the wharf to salute the Governor. 

The man standing next to me touched my 
elbow. "Do you see that large man, the third 
from the end in the Guards' line?" said he. 
"Well, that's Dr. Council, the greatest bear 
hunter in Alaska. I'll introduce you to him 
when we debark." 

And he did, with the result that all our party 

23 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

met the pleasant doctor, who is, from the crown 
of his head to the soles of his feet, an athlete and 
a model of imperturbability — 225 pounds of non- 
superfluous avoirdupois and over a six-footer in 
height. I afterward remarked to Mr. James 
that if I possessed that man's physique, his nerve 
and his undoubted strength, I would turn bear 
hunter immediately and follow no other occupa- 
tion. At his office he showed us grizzly skins that 
he had killed — a short distance from the Copper 
River Railroad, ten to one hundred miles from 
Cordova. These hides were found in shades run- 
ning from almost black to a dark cream, and 
were grizzly, notwithstanding the fact that some 
people up there called them "big brown." The 
grizzly evidence showed everywhere — in the very 
long fore-claws (the big browns do not have as 
long fore-claws as the grizzly), in the accent- 
uated shoulder hump, in the very small ears and 
in the silver-tip hair — with the exception that, 
as I now recall it, the lighter shades did not show 
this silver-tip efi^ect. However, I have seen 
grizzhes in the States of a pure creamy shade in 
which the silver-tip characteristic was entirely 
lacking. Asked if these were the kind of bears 
found in the interior. Dr. Council said he thought 
there were no other than this phase to be found 
there. 

From Dr. Council's remarks, and judging by 
the skins shown us, and from conversations 
with others that we met, both along the coast and 

24 



ENROUTE TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 

in the interior, I feel certain that none of the 
big brown bears are found in the Upper Copper 
River country nor on the White River. That, of 
course, would be the natural supposition without 
even visiting that section, , as these animals, so 
far, have only been found on the islands and 
coastal strips of that region. However, as I 
write, a rumor has come to me of the presence of 
big brown bears in the vicinity of the Alaska 
range, near Mt. McKinley. All naturalists will 
await with interest a verification of this report — 
and if it is verified a few of us may entertain a 
suspicion that the big browns are hybridizing 
with the grizzHes. While black bears inhabit 
the country hunted by us and that contiguous 
to the Copper River as well, of course we know, 
but from evidence noted on this trip I do not be- 
lieve they are nearly so numerous as the grizzly. 

Asked how many bears he had killed in his 
time. Dr. Council said he didn't know. ''How- 
ever," said he, "you can imagine how plentiful 
they are around here when I tell you that out of 
a certain string of seven trips for them from Cor- 
dova I killed a bear the first day on each of six 
of these trips; on the seventh I got my bear, but 
it took longer than one day. 

Before we left Denver I received a letter from 
Caleb Corser, superintendent of the Copper 
River & Northwestern Railway, advising me 
that he would gladly give our party the use of 
his private car from Cordova to McCarthy. 

25 



IN THE ALASKA- YUKON GAMELANDS 

When I received his kind offer I didn't compre- 
hend the full significance of it, but when we 
entered that beautiful little car, with drawing 
room, berths, sleeping rooms, containing real 
brass beds, kitchen, and a first-class Japanese 
cook — and realized that all of this comfort was 
ours for the two days' travel to McCarthy as a 
guest of Mr. Corser — well, we immediately called 
a meeting and voted him the most popular man 
in Alaska, bar none. As we had plenty of room 
in our private car, we invited Governor Riggs 
and his wife, also Dr. Martin, the government 
geologist, to join us as far as Chitina, their rail- 
road destination. 

As we passed the Miles and Childs glaciers, at 
Mile 50, lying on opposite sides of the track a 
mile or so apart, we heard thunderous concussion 
sounds that might have been mistaken for can- 
nonading, but on looking out we saw clouds of 
mist arising from the end of the Childs Glacier 
where an immense column of ice, probably a 
hundred or more feet high, had separated from 
the body of the glacier and had gone crashing 
into the Copper River, which flows along the foot 
of this glacier. This ice field is always moving, 
and naturally, as it does so the river continues 
undermining its mouth. When the cavern made 
by the river gets too deep the ice must fall. This 
it is doing ceaselessly, for during our ten-minute 
stop there we heard two or three more thunder- 
like reports. 

26 



ENROUTE TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 

During the day much interesting information 
was imparted by our friends regarding Alaska. 
The theme was principally along the line of game 
and game protection. We all readily agreed that 
the present paltry $20,000 annually allowed 
Alaska by the government is utterly inade- 
quate to cover the expenses of the game wardens 
and the warden service. The way I view the 
matter is that that territory is the wild-life nest- 
egg that is to supply the United States when the 
game down here is all killed off, and we should 
furnish the money and means to protect it now 
when the protecting is easier than it will be in 
ten or twenty years from now. Wild game in 
large numbers carries a certain momentum or 
force that is utterly lost when thinned down. 
In other words, due care and watchfulness over 
that game now will require not half the effort 
that it will in twenty years hence when it becomes 
decimated. Not less than $100,000 annually 
should be given Alaska for the protection of 
her game, and it pleases me greatly to acknowl- 
edge the splendid recommendation voiced by 
the International Association of Game, Fish 
and Conservation Commissioners at its annual 
meeting three years ago to the effect that it 
favors the appropriation by Congress of $100,000 
for game protection in Alaska. 

The Copper River & Northwestern Railway 
was not built for the accommodation of passen- 
gers, but by the Guggenheim interests as an ad- 

27 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

junct to their big mine at Kennecott, 200 miles 
up from Cordova. Therefore its roadbed is not 
built on a straight-edge plane of smoothness, nor 
do its trains maintain a Lightning Express 
standard of speed. On the contrary, it juggles 
along just like many other mixed freight moun- 
tain railroad trains in the States, and if during 
the day's trip (it doesn't have a night schedule) 
it rolls up twelve miles per hour it is keeping up 
to about what is expected of it. 

As we threaded our tortuous way up the canon 
of the Copper River, our attention was drawn to 
a bar or bench which followed the river along the 
opposite bank for several miles. 

We noticed that it was verdure-clad and that 
it bore a fair crop of timber; and yet it was 
nothing more nor less than glacial in its formation, 
for, except for the upper few feet covering its sur- 
face, it was solid ice. We waited a little longer, 
and as we traveled parallel with the moraine 
(for such it was), we saw a perpendicular cut in 
the edge of the bar. All the white formation 
below the top or covering edge was pure ice. 
That ice extended all along the bench under the 
soil, only that it was covered where we first 
looked at it; but here the water had washed into 
the "bench," exposing the ice that lay concealed 
elsewhere along its path. 

An Indian village was passed, being composed 
of a few crude huts, some open boats in the river 
and a half dozen or more half-naked and very 

28 



ENROUTE TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 

unclean women and children. I presume the 
**men-folks" were away fishing for salmon, one 
of their chief occupations. 

One of our party, reading from the Cordova 
Daily Hera Id of August 8 th, clipped the following 
note and handed it to me: 

"Hans Larson, a prospector on the Stewart 
River, was severely mauled by a bear recently. 
He was bending over a piece of quartz, when the 
bear attacked him from behind, tearing his 
scalp badly and taking strips from his back an 
inch wide and two inches deep in places. He 
killed the bear with his rifle, and mushed ten 
miles to another camp, where he received surgi- 
cal attention. He will recover, altho he is very 
weak from loss of blood." 

"A very common occurrence up here," re- 
marked one of the members of our party, when 
he had heard the piece read. ''The present pro- 
tection should be taken from the big brown bear 
in Alaska, or at least it should be vitally modi- 
fied." ... 

I believe, considering the formidable build and 
more surly disposition of these big plantigrades, 
as contrasted with those of the blacks, and even 
the grizzlies of the States, that the present law 
on them could with justice to all be changed. I 
will confess that I never felt this way until I had 
hunted in that country, but after talking with 
the people of Alaska and hearing of the natural 
prejudice up there against these bears, I feel that 

29 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

a revision of the present law would not have a 
harmful effect. 

There has been an average of nearlv one man 
a year killed in the North by the big brown and 
grizzly bears, and several a year mauled and 
maimed, and I believe that the time has come to 
act. My feeling for the bears of the States, 
where they behave themselves, is different, and 
it is that feeling which has caused me to hold off 
so long on my pronouncement against the North- 
ern bears. I believe we are justified now in re- 
moving all protection from the big browns and 
grizzlies, with the exception of a $5 or a $10 
export license on the hides. In my former 
recommendations concerning these animals I 
have suggested a compromise by increasing the 
bag limit south of 62°, to four, and increasing the 
open season one month above the old period. 
However, since these expressions were published 
I have been confronted with some very vicious 
and unprovoked attacks by them on miners and 
others, resulting in two deaths and some maul- 
ings, and I cannot further restrain my feelings 
that they should go their way unprotected. It is 
very possible that ere this book is published the 
powers that be will have begun on some such 
change as I have mentioned. If such a rule is 
established it will have my support, and, of 
course, the undivided approval of the Alaskans. 
Dr. Nelson, chief of the Bureau of Biological 
Survey, is in favor of the plan. 

30 



ENROUTE TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 

Chitina (population about loo, and lying 132 
miles from Cordova) was reached about 6 o^clock 
p. m. Here we remained over night. From this 
point the automobile stage runs to Fairbanks — a 
three days' trip, and the only means of reaching 
Fairbanks from this direction. Malamute and 
husky sled dogs were in evidence here, and the 
cool mountain air and other signs gave the place 
a decidedly Alaskan atmosphere. 

I believe it was at the station preceding Chi- 
tina on our route that we all had a good opportu- 
nity of testing and comparing our binoculars, 
while the train was being held up. Mr. Corcoran 
had a $200 pair of glasses that we all admired 
very much, while Mr. James and WiUiam carried 
splendid glasses. One of the guides also had 
glasses, in addition, of course, to the Alpine bi- 
noculars that I carried. We spent an hour there 
of very close study of the different makes that 
were found in our party, each one of us trying out 
all the others. I have always felt very well satis- 
fied with my present binoculars, which I have 
used for over twelve years, but when I heard the 
other members of our party comment on them I 
felt better than I ever had before about them. 
The general verdict of all was that they were 
more satisfactory for game hunting than any 
of the others — due to the ease of manipulation 
and the clearness and size of the field. I have in 
later years used an 8-power glass. I should never 
go higher than this in power. 

31 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

Next morning at 9 o'clock, after bidding fare- 
well to Governor Riggs, his wife and Dr. Martin 
(who were bound for Fairbanks), we departed 
by rail for McCarthy — not, however, without 
first inviting Mr. Corcoran and his party, also a 
Mr. Davy of Denver, to join us in the private 
car, thereby filling the places left vacant by the 
first-named party. 

Aside from crossing a bridge that spanned a 
gulch at a height of 238 feet and the sighting of 
some goats (that later turned to stone) on the 
nearby mountains by Rogers and William, the 
trip to McCarthy was without incident. We 
arrived there (elevation, 1,440 feet, 250 popula- 
tion, and 189 miles from Cordova) at 2:30 p. m. 
Cap Hubrick, our guide, was the first to meet us. 
It seemed but the work of two or three hours to 
get properly quartered at the hotel and look 
over and sort out our hunting duflFel. 

While we were engaged at this very interesting 
occupation the various members of the working 
end of the "dramatis personae" — as Bill Shakes- 
peare would put it — straggled in. As these men 
had much to do with our hunt, and as their 
names will frequently occur in the references to 
our daily experiences, I shall name them in the 
order in which we met them, after first devoting 
a paragraph to Cap Hubrick, our outfitter. 

Cap is a man of 62; five feet ten inches, 190 
pounds, whose history, if accurately recorded, 
would contain much of tragedy, drama and pa- 

32 



ENROUTE TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 

thos. Colorado, New Mexico, Washington and 
other States claimed him as a resident at various 
times before he went to the Klondike, twenty 
years ago. His life has been lived wholly in the 
open, and he shows the splendid effect of this 
life in his daily camp and hunting work, from 
that of carrying a log to camp to the agility dis- 
played in climbing a mountain. He is one of the 
best shots at running game with whom I have 
ever hunted. Like many men of the frontier, he 
was pretty wild in his day, and on a few occasions 
got into serious trouble by loading up on six- 
shooters and bad whiskey. However, Cap 
is now a muchly-settled-down man, married, and 
has the prettiest little home in McCarthy. He 
once ran a ferry boat across the Yukon River at 
Dawson, which accounts for his universally 
known title of "Cap." 

Bill Longley, our head packer, altho tall in 
stature, is not long on adulation, nor is he strong 
on secret treaties or imbroglios, but believing 
that attention to business is the best way to make 
the camp *'safe for democracy," he wends his 
placid way in a manner commendable in a hunt- 
ing assistant. I have always found that it is 
hard enough to get along in camp with every- 
body when everyone tries to do his bit, and this 
Bill accomplished without considering the cost 
in enduring hardships. Bill is 50 years of 
age, but looks 40, and understands the pack- 
ing game to perfection. I believe Bill would 

33 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

rather cut off a finger than commit a dishonor- 
able act. 

Billy Wooden is a twin brother to Bill Longley 
in the feature of work. He seemed to be a glut- 
ton for exercise and endurance, never waiting 
for the next man to wrangle horses, wade cold 
streams or travel the wet underbrush. He al- 
ways came up with a smile, and never once lost 
his temper except when Shorty Gwin crossed 
him. Billy is of small stature, about 40 years 
old, once ran a roadhouse on the Nizina, and is 
thoroly familiar with the life of that country. 

Shorty Gwin : Outside of Cap, Shorty was the 
greatest character in the party. He also is 62 
years old — short, stocky, beardy and brashy — a 
man who is at home anywhere in his tracks in 
the hills; whose bed under a drooping spruce is as 
good to him as one on a box mattress. When he 
cast off his old clothes at the end of the trip, 
dressed up and shaved, his dog Jimmie would 
have nothing to do with him, but hung around 
Cap's house hke one who had lost a friend. His 
humor is wholesome and natural and his stories 
told of evenings were gems of imaginative concep- 
tion. "Hell! Where's my tobacco?" from Shorty 
always meant that a good story was coming up. 

Jimmie Brown, the fourth member of the 
packing force, like Shorty, hadn't very aesthetic 
tastes regarding his bed and board while in the 
hills. As a matter of fact, these men cannot be 
too particular about anything while on the trail, 

34 



ENROUTE TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 

as experience has taught them that "readiness 
to serve*' double discounts good clothes and 
fancy grub while in the open. Jimmy could sleep 
on less and live on less food while on a "siwash** 
trip than anyone I have ever met. He is a 
small man, about 40, wiry, quick and unobtru- 
sive. Like Billy Wooden, he is a wonderful 
climber — a human camel in traveling long dis- 
tances without food or water. For years he has 
employed his time at freighting between Mc- 
Carthy and the Shushanna mining district. In 
winter he uses dog sleds in this work, and could 
tell many a harrowing tale of hardship, death 
and privation while traveling on the glaciers 
over this route. 

Next comes our little Jap, Jimmie Fujii, who 
acted as cook. While a typical Japanese in man- 
ner and disposition, yet he has absorbed much 
of American and Alaskan ways during the 
twenty-odd years that he has been a "rolling 
stone" in this country. First marrying in Japan, 
he has had two matrimonial ventures in America 
with white girls, but has given up all future ideas 
of repeating the offense over here. He is now 
treading the path of single blessedness again, and, 
being a free man, travels when dnd where he 
pleases, following the avocation of cook. He is a 
high school graduate, and aside from being a 
splendid cook is a great student of international 
social problems. His morning call — usually issued 
at 5:30 a. m. — "Ho-oh! Break-fawst!'' — still 

35 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

rings in my ears, and while it was not always 
a pleasant reminder, yet our later contact with 
the hot cakes and other fixings took all the early 
chill away. 

That pent-up anxiety to get away, which had 
been fermenting in our systems for days, finally 
found escapement the next afternoon at 2:30, 
when the packers announced that they were 
"organized'' and ready to start. It seemed that 
half of McCarthy's 250 souls were congregated 
around the vacant space, where the horses were 
packed, to see us depart. The sixteen packs 
were loaded with about 200 pounds each, or 
3,200 pounds total. After crossing the Httle 
stream in McCarthy's back yard we were soon 
strung out along the roadway on the hillside that 
overlooks the town. Soon the little village was 
lost to view, and automatically the wilderness 
opened its arms to receive us, holding us fast for 
the next thirty-nine days. Four miles along a 
good wagon thorofare led us to the brink of Sour- 
dough Hill; then five miles over a squashy road 
landed us at Shorty Gwin's cabin on the Nizina 
River, our abode for the night. Here we said 
good-bye to the wagon road, thenceforward de- 
pending on trails and no-trails, water, ice and 
river bars for our travel. The sun at this time 
was warm, the air mellow, and, aside from a 
slight variation in the foliage, we would hardly 
have known that we were not traveling along an 
old New Brunswick tote road. The first "dif- 

36 



ENROUTE TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 

ferent'* sign that we noted was the presence of 
the fireweed, a flower that grows a foot or two 
high, of pinkish color, which is seen at this season 
in such bounteous profusion that it actually 
paints the meadows and hillsides. Single gardens 
of this flower covered spaces dozens of acres in 
extent, causing the terrene at a distance to 
appear as a solid mass of pink. 

The timber of the country visited by us in- 
cludes Sitka spruce (a tree that I mistook for fir, 
owing to the needles being soft-pointed), balm of 
gilead (found in abundance), birch, alder, willow 
and quaking aspen (the latter very rarely seen). 
Among the wild berries found thereabouts were: 
High-bush cranberries, low bush cranberries, 
black and red currants, blueberries (very plen- 
tiful), salmon berries (in abundance along the 
coast), raspberries, wolf berries and, of course, 
roseberries. 

We awoke the following morning to find our 
horses missing. Billy and Jimmie went in search 
of them, finding that they had traveled ten miles 
up the Nizina, attracted by the pea-vine, a low- 
growing, palatable and very fattening plant that 
grows over most of the river bars of that section. 
It was therefore 2:30 that afternoon before we 
got started. 

As Shorty is known there as the wizard of the 
Nizina River, he led the way across it, a treacher- 
ous quicksand stream flowing at this time in 
some twelve or more channels. (When we re- 

37 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

turned a month later this water had concentrated 
into about three channels. It is always chang- 
ing.) Shorty dwelt long and often upon the 
great requisite of being able to **read" water. 
He has lived on the Nizina so long and has wit- 
nessed and been a participant in so many acci- 
dents on this stream that he is recognized as the 
most capable man on that river to lead a pack 
outfit across it. 

We had no difficulty in making a successful 
ford, and after following it for six or seven miles 
we decided to camp at the Spruce Point Cabin, 
an old deserted shack, at one time occupied and 
run by Billy Wooden as a roadhouse. Our de- 
cision to camp here, and not at the mouth of the 
Chittistone (as originally planned), was greatly 
encouraged by a downpour of rain which came 
on us as we were approaching the cabin, and 
which kept up all night, but in lessened volume. 
We traveled eight miles during the afternoon, 
over a boggy trail in some places, and over the 
bar of the river in others. 

While traveling up the Nizina during the day 
Bill Longley pointed to a white speck, barely 
discernible on a rough mountain a couple miles 
off to our right. "That's a tent I took up there 
a year ago for a prospector," said he. "But it's 
never been used, as the *color' petered out." 
When asked why it was never taken down and 
used. Bill said it wasn't worth the expense of go- 
ing for it. And when men's wages and horses' 

38 



ENROUTE TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 

hire are considered, it doesn't take a lightning 
calculator to figure out how very correct his 
statement is. As an illustration of this condition 
in that country: A fine, large cooking range that 
would command $25 or $30 in town, even at 
second-hand prices, lies unclaimed in the cabin 
where we spent that night (only ^bout seventeen 
miles from McCarthy), for the simple reason 
that it isn't worth the trouble and work of pack- 
ing it in. 

Half concealed in the timber at the side of the 
trail up the Nizina stood an old deserted cabin 
(as all cabins are in this country). Some one 
pointed it out to us as the roadhouse that was 
run by B. S. Kelly during the Shushanna gold 
rush in 19 13. It is said of him that while running 
this roadhouse he found himself on his **last 
legs" financially. When a man called to get a 
meal, Kelly would ask him if he had a frying pan 
in his outfit. Of course every prospector travel- 
ing thru at that time had a frying pan. The 
next question asked was, "Have you some 
grease?" This was another acquisition usually 
found in the prospector's pack. Kelly would 
then place the skillet on the fire and tell the 
prospector to go out and kill a rabbit, remarking 
that that would do for his dinner — for which a 
charge of $1.50 was made. 

That night some long-distance world's records 
were broken in the gabfest that followed after 
supper, and if the shades of all the departed 

39 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

moose, sheep, goats, caribou, bears and men 
(records of whose slaughter were told most 
vividly) did not appear to us in our sleep that 
night as a protest, then it was because they had 
been killed so dead that there was no chance of 
their ever returning to earth again in any form. 
Up to that time I had always considered Harry 
a pretty good single-handed talker, but he was 
entirely outclassed by Cap and Shorty in their 
recitations of old-time Alaska experiences. These 
two sourdoughs battled in the oratorical arena 
for hours, and at the conclusion of the contest, 
which outrivaled in gameness and ferocity the 
gladiator encounters of old, the bout was de- 
clared a draw. 

Next day it continued raining, so the contest 
was resumed, lasting all that day and far into 
the night. Shorty told of once capturing a goat 
alive in Alaska, and said they were so tame and 
plentiful that it would be no trick at all to repeat 
the performance on this trip. Cap said he had 
seen the rabbits so thick in that country that 
they ate off all the vegetation — in fact, these 
rabbits were so numerous that finally they had 
no feed whatever, so they ate themselves. Billy 
Wooden told of killing an ibex in Alaska, describ- 
ing it as a counterpart of the goat except that 
the front feet were large and the horns were 
twisted, containing ridges that ran in spiral fash- 
ion around the horn, as in some of the European 
species. 

40 



ENROUTE TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 

I was curiously interested in the ibex story, 
especially as I had heard from other sources of 
these animals having existed there. One man 
who vouches for their presence at one time in 
Alaska is ex-Representative James Wickersham, 
of Fairbanks, with whom I conversed on the 
subject. 

However, Judge Wickersham, I believe, re- 
ceived his impressions more from what he read 
in Gen. T. A. Allen's book, ^'Government Report 
on the Copper River (Alaska) Exploring Expedi- 
tion of 1886,'' than from any personal experience 
that he has had with the supposed animals. I 
have a copy of General Allen's book, and publish 
herewith an extract from it covering the subject, 
as follows: 

"Whether the big-horn mountain sheep, ovis 
canadensis, exists in Alaska I am unable to say, 
but I desire to add also a new geographical race 
of the same. The animal in question is called by 
the natives tebay, and this name I leave un- 
changed until a specimen will have been carried 
out of the territory. We killed several of these 
animals, one of which, a ram, had horns twenty 
inches long and nearly straight. Their structure 
was similar to that of the bighorn, but the curva- 
ture was very slight. This ram was killed on a 
very high point, such a place as is usually sought 
by them, and in its fall was sadly mangled. The 
head of the tebay is much like that of a South- 
down sheep, the muzzle much less pointed than 



IN THE ALASKA- YUKON GAMELANDS 

in Nelson's big-horn. The hair is of a uniform 
white — in fact, nearly equal to his snow surround- 
ings in color, and is nearly as easily broken as 
that of the antelope. Next to the skin is a very 
fine, short wool, which is very strong. In size the 
tebay is probably an equal of its relative, the big- 
horn. I saw a spoon made from the horn of one 
that measured twenty-six inches in length and 
five inches across the bowl. We were informed 
that some had much larger horns than the one 
that furnished material for this spoon. This, 
like most statements of natives, is questionable. 
The large ram and one other were killed on the 
most northerly tributary of the Chi ttis tone 
River. The natives informed us that small tebay 
could be killed a few miles below the junction of 
the Chittistone, a fact we doubted, and hence 
chose to allow them the use of our carbines. 
They passed the night on the mountains north of 
the Chitina River, and returned with four small 
ones that would weigh when dressed probably 
sixty-five pounds. The heads were left on the 
mountains, but the bodies brought in seemed 
identical with those obtained on the Chittistone 
River. Why only small ones should be found at 
this place in the latter part of April I cannot say; 
yet the mountains here were not so high as far- 
ther to the east, where the large ones had been 
killed. The last of these animals seen or heard of 
by us were near the headwaters of Copper River, 
on the divide between it and the Tanana River." 

42 



ENROUTE TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 

At this late day, of course it seems odd to read 
of a doubt cast at the habitat of the ovis cana- 
densis, as shown herein by General Allen, but 
when one reflects that his book was written about 
thirty-five years ago, it is not amazing. It is 
amusing to note the two very distinct animals 
described respectively by Billy Wooden and Gen- 
eral Allen. Billy Wooden's animal of mystery 
was distinctly a goat, except for the horn and 
front hoof formation, while General Allen's was 
a sheep. There could, of course, be no connection 
between the two forms, according to the descrip- 
tions given. Naturally, when we hear of such 
reports, the first thing that enters our mind is 
that no hunter has ever been able to secure and 
preserve one of the skins, and secondly, that none 
of these specimens has ever reached any of the 
many natural history institutes of our country 
that would be so very anxious to secure them at 
a substantial cost. I believe I can solve the Allen 
myth by suggesting that it might be a young 
mountain sheep ram or an old female, with 
slightly curved horns. But Billy Wooden's ibex 
has simply got my "goat," for I cannot fathom 
it. Rumors of ibexes having been seen in the 
States are very old. Other unnatural forms of 
wild life have also been reported, but when run 
down they have usually turned out to be about 
as authentic as the stories of the philaloo bird 
and the side-hill gouger. 



43 



Second Qhapter 



IN THE 
GOAT AND GLACIER FIELDS 



THE PARSON'S SON 

Fm one of the Arctic brotherhood, I'm an old-time pioneer. 

I came with the first — O God! how I've cursed this Yukon — but still 

I'm here. 
I've sweated athirst in its summer heat, I've frozen and starved in 

its cold ; 
I've followed my dreams by its thousand streams, I've toiled and 

moiled for its gold. 

Look at my eyes — been snow-blind twice ; look where my foot's half 

gone ; 
And that gruesome scar on my left cheek, where the frost-fiend bit to 

the bone. 
Each one a brand of this devil's land, where I've played and I've lost 

the game, 
A broken wreck with a craze for " hooch," and never a cent to my name. 

— Robert Service. 



SECOND CHAPTER 
IN THE GOAT AND GLACIER FIELDS 

npHE following morning we started at 10:30 
-*; in a drizzle, which later cleared. We were 
especially fortunate that clear skies welcomed 
us on the latter part of the day's ride, as some 
beautiful scenery opened up, including water- 
falls, gorgeous hills and sublime snowcapped 
summits. The grandeur almost repaid for the 
near-dousing we received that day while cross- 
ing back over the Nizina. It seems the packs 
were in some unaccountable way divided (some- 
thing which should be avoided, if possible); 
at any rate, we saw Shorty, Wooden and others 
with a contingent of packs crossing below us, 
and the manner in which the riders leaned down- 
stream told, if the submerged packs had not, 
that they were in dangerous water. Bill Longley, 
Harry and others (including myself) were in the 
string that crossed above, and for a moment it 
looked as if we should encounter swimming 
water, as it foamed up to the middle of the 
horses' bodies, wetting the packs and ourselves 
as well. Swimming water in that surging torrent 
hardly conveys a true meaning of the term to 

47 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

one accustomed only to moderate running water. 
Besides, it is ice cold, coming from the glacier 
but a few miles away, and to even get soaked in 
it, with nothing worse, might mean a bad case of 
rheumatism; while if one's horse should roll in 
this water there would be an excellent chance of 
a funeral at the opposite shore. The boys who 
knew more about glacial streams than we advised 
us, should our horse roll, to jump downstream, 
rather than up, as by doing so we would fall 
clear of our horse, and being lighter would float 
or swim out of its reach; whereas, by jumping 
upstream we would run the risk of being sucked 
under the horse. A man was killed on the Nizina 
in this way a year before, his head being crushed 
by one of the horse's feet. In crossing these 
streams (for there were others as bad as the 
Nizina, including the Frederika and White), we 
always leaned downstream, which served to 
brace the horse by throwing his feet upstream — 
the very opposite eff^ect of leaning upstream and 
forcing the feet down. This is a knack I had 
learned while swimming our horses across the 
Shoshone River in Wyoming many years ago 
while bear hunting with Ned Frost, and Fve 
never forgotten it. At first it sounds almost un- 
reasonable, as, if we were fording such a stream 
on foot we would lean up, but on horseback the 
conditions are reversed. 

Many brave men lose their lives in this wild 
country every year from a variety of causes. 

48 



IN THE GOAT AND GLACIER FIELDS 

Most of them become so hardened to the weather 
and privations that they can endure almost un- 
believable trials on the trail. We were told of 
one man and his dog team who, a few years ago, 
subsisted for ten days on rabbits alone, while 
camped in a tent on Nizina Glacier. Freighters, 
prospectors and others frequently get caught on 
the glaciers in mid-winter in a blizzard and are 
compelled to camp until it is over, as in that in- 
tense winter climate, with a twenty-five or 
thirty mile wind blowing, there is no human that 
could withstand the cold, piercing wind while 
traveling. 

Dozens of graves in sequestered spots dot the 
banks of these streams, mute testimony to the 
severity of the Alaska winters. Seldom more 
than a very few people know where these men 
are buried, as, when found, whether dead or 
dying, there is usually but few in the discovering 
party (more often but one) and very likely it is 
necessary to make haste with the obsequies in 
order to save their own lives; so the body is laid 
to rest usually in a fern-clad or pine-decorated 
spot, with a blaze on a near-by tree on which 
pencil or pen marks (soon, of course, obhterated) 
are placed, telling the man*s name, if known, and 
the date of the burial. As most of these graves 
are off the trail (which changes almost yearly in 
most cases) it may easijy be understood how few 
of them are known to the average passer-by. 
We passed one such grave, that of Captain Tay- 

49 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

lor, who was frozen to death while necking a 
hand sleigh across Nizina Glacier in February, 
1914. 

Cap related the tragic death of a musher three 
years ago: "Two-Much'* Johnson and Fred 
Youngs were freighters between McCarthy and 
Shushanna, the gold camp. Returning to Mc- 
Carthy with their big Yukon River sled pulled 
by sixteen dogs, they came to the Shushanna 
Glacier. This ice field was a very dangerous one 
to cross in the spring owing to its great number 
of crevasses. When covered with snow a foot or 
two deep a man has to be very careful. The 
snow bridges over the crevasses and makes some 
of the narrow ones hard to see. The men had 
stopped their sled to go ahead and "sound" out 
the snow-covered crevasses with alpenstocks, 
when the dogs began fighting. A dog fight out of 
the harness is ordinarily a very much mixed-up 
affair, but when these fighting "wolves" of the 
North tangle up in a tooth battle with the har- 
ness on, the mix-up is about as hard to straighten 
out as a string puzzle. Finally after they got 
cleared, they were started; but, wrought up by 
their late fighting, the dogs were very nervous 
and erratic, and at one point tried to jump over 
a crevasse before their masters were ready for 
them. These crevasses in many places had to be 
bridged over by the men chopping off the ice of 
the sides with picks until the crack filled, thereby 
making a safe trail over the opening. However, 

50 



IN THE GOAT AND GLACIER FIELDS 

in this case, the dogs broke away and ran head- 
long into the crevasse. Only the first eight of 
the sixteen fell in, but their weight on the har- 
ness was too much and it broke, letting them 
down. "Too-Much" Johnson, in trying to get 
the dogs straightened out, fell in also. Some of 
these cracks are hundreds of feet deep and 
Youngs felt something must be done quickly if 
his partner was to be saved. So he hurried to 
the relief camp (a camp the freighters maintain 
on or near these glaciers where men and means 
are kept to render assistance in such cases). 
Returning with men, axes, picks, ropes and every 
appurtenance necessary, they began the search 
for Johnson. They worked along this crevasse 
and down it (by lowering men with ropes) all 
that day and during the whole night — using 
*'bugs,'' or electric lights — but no trace of the 
man could be found. When dawn broke they 
detected a dark object a half mile away climbing 
over the top of the crevasse. They ran up and 
found it was Johnson, who barely had strength 
to drag himself over the top, where he lay ex- 
hausted. They found both hands and part of his 
face frozen and the fingers worn almost to stubbs 
in trying to climb up over the icy sides. They 
wrapped him up carefully, laid him on the sled 
and started for McCarthy, but before they 
reached the town he expired — thereby offering 
up another life — the supreme toll — to the fas- 
cinating but uncertain life of the frozen North. 

51 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

During the winter of 1919-20 Jimmy Brown 
(our indomitable little guide and glacier trail 
blazer) and Dan Campbell experienced a dis- 
tressful misfortune while dog-sledding in that 
country. The first report that I received of it 
came from Cap Hubrick, our outfitter, in the 
following letter: 

''McCarthy, Alaska, Jan. 29, 1920 

"Joe McClelland and Bill Maher (Shushana 
mail carriers) came in today with dog teams, 
bringing in Jimmie Brown and Dan Campbell 
in a badly frozen condition. Brownie and Camp- 
bell left the head of the White River early this 
month for McCarthy with a seven-dog team and 
got along all right until they undertook to cross 
the Nizina Glacier in a fierce blizzard (which was 
very foolish of them). When they reached a 
point about two miles from McLeod's (where we 
camped when you were hunting with us), they 
got into a deep ice ravine and followed this down 
the glacier until it became so steep on either side 
that they could not get out, and the dogs refused 
to go back against the strong wind. It got dark 
on them and the only thing they could do was to 
get into their sleeping bags to keep from freezing. 

"During the night they began to realize that 
they were slowly but surely freezing to death, so 
they began to fight for life, and when it became 
light enough to see to travel they made a start. 
The dogs had all perished except one, and he 

52 



IN THE GOAT AND GLACIER FIELDS 

would not leave his dead companions. They 
were compelled to abandon everything; could not 
even take their snowshoes. The wind was blow- 
ing so hard that it was impossible to stand up on 
the ice where the snow had blown away. All 
they did take was their camp axe. That day 
they reached the homestead cabin in the timber 
a short way below the glacier, and here they lay 
for sixteen days without food or blankets, 
Brownie being utterly helpless and Campbell 
creeping around on hands and knees getting fuel 
to keep from freezing. Yesterday McClelland 
and Maher found them in this condition and 
brought them to town today. Brownie will lose 
part of one foot and some fingers. The flesh is 
dropping from his hands now. His face and 
neck are black and an awful sight. Campbell 
will lose part of both feet. They will be crippled 
for life, and the awful suffering they will go thru 
for some time to come will be heart-rending.'* 

Two months later, when *'Brownie" had re- 
covered sufficiently to dictate a letter, he wrote 
me as follows: 

**Dan Campbell and I left Shushana (a mining 
camp about loo miles from McCarthy) Jan- 
uary 2nd with a seven-dog team, and made 
fairly good progress until we reached White 
River. Here we were storm-bound for three 
days, when we made a trip onto the Russell 
Glacier, but were compelled to return to timber 

S3 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

on account of the severe storms. The following 
day we made another attempt, and after we were 
out on the glacier about four miles we were com- 
pelled to drop one of our dog sleighs, and by 
sheer doggedness we managed to reach the relief 
cabin at the head of the Russell Glacier late at 
night. The next day we went back after the 
other sled and the weather seemed to have mod- 
erated a little, but turned bitter cold towards 
evening. 

" The next day we made another start for the 
Frederika relief cabin, which is located in the 
willows just south of the creek where the trail 
crosses the Frederika stream. Between the 
Skolai Basin and this cabin we barely averted 
disaster in crossing one of the deep cuts. We 
started a snowslide, above which we happened 
to be, but if we had been on it or below it I am 
sure our troubles would have ended then and 
there. Nothing could have lived in this slide. 
But we reached the cabin without any further 
adventures and slept like only those who have 
had plenty of outdoor exercise can sleep. 

"It was storming hard the following morning, 
but as the wind was to our backs and being shel- 
tered by the mountains on either side, we con- 
cluded to make a start and go as far as was 
possible so long as we had timber to camp in at 
night. We followed the canon and it was mighty 
hard going all the way — snow drifted badly in 



54 



IN THE GOAT AND GLACIER FIELDS 

places and lots of open water, often breaking 
thru the thin ice, which made progress slow. 

** About 2 o'clock we reached Skolai Lake at 
the Nizina Glacier. Here we struck very hard 
going, the snow being quite deep and soft. Still 
we thought we could make it across to timber. 
After some time of wallowing in the snow we 
began to realize that we were up against the real 
thing, but it was too late to turn back. We 
were now getting the winds from the Nizina and 
Skolai so hard that they could not be faced. 
Our only salvation was to keep going. We had 
to get off the lake and onto the glacier and go 
quartering across so as to keep out of the worst 
of the crevasses; yet we encountered a number 
of them and passed thru the worst places when 
darkness overtook us and this, of course, stopped 
further progress for the day. We judged the 
wind was blowing about seventy miles per hour. 
By setting up our snowshoes against the back of 
the sled and bringing a tarp around them, we 
had some sort of a wind-break; then we took one 
robe and spread this on the ice to sit on and drew 
another robe over us. In this way we spent a 
very unpleasant night. No matter how we 
tucked and fixed the covering robe the snow 
would drift in, and then our bodies would melt 
it, and in this way we got wet, and when it be- 
came light enough to see to travel we made a 
start for timber, which was about two miles dis- 



55 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

tant, leaving everything. Being compelled to 
face the wind in order to get back up on the 
higher ice and out of the crevasses, the dogs 
would not follow. 

*'Our clothes, moccasions and mittens were 
wet. We had no more than got out of our robes 
before our clothing was frozen stiff. My parka 
bulged out in front and froze as hard as a board. 
Every time I took a step my foot would hit the 
bottom; then the top would hit me in the face; 
this cut like a knife, until my face looked like a 
butcher's block. Campbell thought I was bleed- 
ing at the lungs and really was worried about 
me. Of course, he told me this later. 

* 'Where the snow had blown off it made it im- 
possible to stand up. Often we had to crawl or 
roll along these places. We at last reached the 
old barn beside the glacier (at McLeod's), where 
we got a fire started, but it was impossible to 
thaw out here. The wind was blowing so hard 
we had to beat it down to the old cabin called 
the Homestead, distance about four miles. I 
knew that my hands and feet were frozen and 
that CampbelFs feet were also frozen, but it was 
no use to idle along. There was but one thing to 
do, and that was to get to the cabin and start a 
fire and save as much as possible of our hands 
and feet. We had left our snowshoes, and this 
made it harder for us, as the snow was about 
three feet deep, and I judge it took us at least 
two hours to make this four miles. 

56 



IN THE GOAT AND GLACIER FIELDS 

*'0n reaching the cabin I was helpless, both 
hands badly frozen, so I could not even help 
start a fire. Campbell was more fortunate, he 
having two good hands, but his feet were very- 
bad, and by hobbling around he managed to 
start a fire and then we began to take stock of 
ourselves and also of the contents of the cabin. 

"Here I wish to say that we can thank Joe 
McClelland and Bill Maher that we are alive to- 
day, by having the cabin in a fairly warm con- 
dition, and wood enough to do us over night; 
there was also some flour, rice and dog feed here. 
The thermometer registered 60 below zero and 
the winds howled on the glaciers. We did not 
know how long it would be before we might be 
rescued by some one coming along. 

"Sixteen days of watchful waiting we spent in 
this cabin, looking for Joe and Bill, who were 
carrying the mail, but they likewise had en- 
countered severe storms and were delayed. 
They arrived about 2:30 in the afternoon and 
were pretty tired. Of course they did everything 
they could to make us comfortable, and the fol- 
lowing day they went back after our outfit. 
They found one dog alive and three frozen to 
death. The other three had disappeared. No 
doubt they tried to go back to Shushana. Since 
then one of the three has showed up at Solo 
Creek; the other two, no doubt, have died. 

"The next day we started for McCarthy and 
here we are. I expect to be able to get around 

57 



IN THE ALASKA- YUKON GAMELANDS 

by the time the hunting season opens, but will 
not be able to walk enough to do any guiding in 
the hills, but if I can get a party to take out I 
will do the wrangling and help around the camp 
and do all I can. By next year I expect to be 
able to go some. If my horses live thru the win- 
ter I will be pretty lucky. All the other horses 
in that country have died this winter. 

Brownie.'' 

Five o'clock of the evening of August 13th 
saw us in camp at the scene of the old McCloud 
Road House (the same stopping place that 
"Brownie" refers to in his letter), after traveling 
sixteen miles from Spruce Point. The road 
house was hardly fit for occupancy, so we put 
up the tents — their initial appearance in service 
on Alaska soil. 

Next morning we were up at 5 for our first big 
game hunting — goats — and at 7:20 all departed 
for Rhinoceros Peak (also called Finger Moun- 
tain), via Nizina and Regal glaciers. We 
covered six miles on horseback going to our 
hunting country, all on these glaciers. 

Never have I witnessed a more beautiful sight 
than that which greeted us as we filed along on 
the surface of the white ice that clear morning. 
The clouds had not all lifted from the highest 
peaks, whose dark promontories stood half- 
sheathed in their filmy gowns of billowy mist. 
Finger Mountain was thrice-attractive because 

58 







C 
C 

x: 



CO 

C 

o 



»'■ "J 



£ 



&4' 



IN THE GOAT AND GLACIER FIELDS 

only his black-pointed crest was visible, like a 
floating buoy, above the feathery sea of encir- 
chng clouds. 

As this was our first glacier travel we felt very 
much that timidity one would experience in 
walking on eggs, fearing our horses might slip on 
the treacherous ice, which was interwoven with 
crevasses and pot-holes, ridges and gullies. 
Solid terra firma we had all found dangerous 
enough at times, but this glacier traveling the 
first hour of that first day was the most tickhsh 
thing we had experienced in many moons. 
After that we took it with steadier assurance, 
and didn't feel thrilly any more. As every horse 
in the outfit had been sharp-shod at McCarthy 
before leaving, we finally settled down to a regu- 
lar sourdough form of contentment and took 
every slip, slide and skate as a matter of course, 
trying to think of these hair-breadth escapes 
from instant death (as they sometimes appeared 
to us) as the ordinary events of a hunting trip in 
the Far North. 

Just the same, if any of my readers believes 
that an Alaska glacier is anything resembling a 
boulevard or skating rink in smoothness you 
should be disillusioned; for there are moun- 
tains, peaks, valleys and canons on the glacier — 
all on a small scale, it is true, but they are there 
in as varied projection and dejection as in a 
range of the rockiest mountains. The glacier 
surface is serrated with little streamlets; cracks 

59 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

and crevasses, the former running from an inch 
in width to from five to ten feet — crevasses the 
same. Some pot holes and crevasses extend 
down thru the ice hundreds of feet. The horses 
used on the glacier trail are as proficient at this 
work as are the range riding horses in the roping 
game. They have all had their falls on the ice, 
their slips, slides and rolls, and they know as well 
as a man does what places are dangerous. 

While crossing a stream in the glacier this day 
one of our horses slipped and fell, landing be- 
tween two ice ridges in the bottom of a **draw" 
almost on his back. By chopping away the ice 
on each side of the crack he was able to rise. 
While taking a short rest after this experience, 
the beauty of the scene before us was reflected 
again thru mention of it by Harry, who pro- 
nounced it a real memory-jewel. On account of 
the unusual lighting effect produced by the clear- 
ing of the storm, I doubt if many other travelers 
crossing this glacier will ever again be treated to 
just such a kaleidoscopic display of colors as we 
witnessed. Many shades each of green, blue and 
purple appeared in each crevasse and pot-hole. 
In the perspective, extending for miles, was seen 
the green- white expanses of mountain and plain 
in miniature, the sun*s rays dancing on the shim- 
mering corrugations and casting shadows inter- 
mittently on the glass-like iridescence. 

In the background, like a sentinel guarding 
the wave of ice, stood the bold summit (Finger 

60 



IN THE GOAT AND GLACIER FIELDS 

Mountain) on which we were to hunt the oream- 
nos montanus today. As we approached this 
mountain, various "goats'* were pointed out by 
different members of our party. Usually, on 
closer inspection, they turned out to be either 
white rocks or patches of snow. One party per- 
sisted in his belief that if a certain object was 
not a live goat it certainly was a dead one. 
Rocks turned into goats with the rapidity of 
lightning. There was hardly a man who hadn't 
some pet snow spot or rock that he tried to bring 
to life with the glasses. 

Cap and others picked out some goats on one 
of the higher mesas, and these proved to be the 
only goats seen from the glacier. Finally we 
approached the **shore-line," climbed onto solid 
earth, left the horses on a good feeding ground in 
charge of Jimmie Brown, and began the ascent 
of the mountain. William James, Rogers, Bill 
Longley and Billy Wooden bore to the right, 
while Harry, Cap and I took to the left. After 
ascending i,ooo feet, we heard some ten or twelve 
shots, and looking down, saw William pointing 
toward the mountain. We feared, however, that 
he hadn't scored. Soon afterward we saw a band 
of seventeen goats stringing away to the west- 
ward, some hundreds of feet above us, presum- 
ably frightened by William's shooting. 

We climbed higher, ate lunch, and then mov- 
ing still higher counted thirty-three goats strung 
out on the trail to the rear of and following the 

6i 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

seventeen that had just passed. They were 
about a mile away and separated from us by a 
couple of divides. Later we walked out to the 
rim of the precipice that dropped below and saw 
William a short distance down the hill. He said 
he connected with his goat, all right, but that it 
hadn't yet shed its hair, and issued a warning 
that the other boys had advised us not to shoot 
any more as the goats weren't yet "clean." 
This puzzled us greatly, and especially Cap, who 
said that goats always shed in June. Notwith- 
standing William's advice, we started again to 
climb up, hoping to get a close-up look at some 
others — possibly those that we had seen from the 
glacier. My limbs began to cramp so badly that 
I decided to remain back. Half an hour after 
Harry, William and Cap had disappeared over 
the rim above I heard rifle shots in their direc- 
tion. Jumping to my feet, unable to overcome 
the hunting curiosity that sometimes seizes us, 
I clambered to the top toward them. 

Glancing to the westward I counted twenty 
goats moving away — trailing up a hill at a dis- 
tance of half a mile, like silent marching soldier 
specters. They seemed not the least excited, 
but determined and imperturbable. To me 
there is something patriarchal in the appearance 
of a goat, and as they lined out on that trail they 
formed a picture solemn and reverential. 

I believe in one of the above paragraphs I men- 
tioned rifle shots. I imagine the reader will begin 

62 



IN THE GOAT AND GLACIER FIELDS 

to think it is time something was doing in the 
firing line, after the long wait for active hos- 
tilities. He will also want to know what kind of 
shooting irons each member of the party carried, 
and before any blood is spilt I believe I'd better 
give out this information: Harry James carried 
one .35 Remington auto and one .30 U. S. Win- 
chester; William James had a duplicate of his 
father's order; Rogers carried a .303 Savage; 
Hubrick a .250-3000 Savage, while I took two 
guns of the .30 U. S. Winchester make, one bored 
for the '03 shell and the other for the '06. One 
of the guides had a .35 Winchester, while another 
toted a gun the make and caliber of which I have 
forgotten. 

On reaching the "bench" above, a quick sur- 
vey disclosed four white spots lying in various 
positions of disorder 200 or 300 yards ahead of 
me, and kneeling at one of these and in the act 
of evisceration were seen Harry and Hubrick. 
William was running wild-eyed in search of a 
crippled lamb. About all I could hear from him 
in passing me was an uncomplimentary remark 
concerning some one. I afterward learned that 
his reference was to Hubrick, who had fired at 
the goats before giving Harry a first chance. In 
this he committed a grievous mistake, as James 
was naturally entitled to not only the first shot, 
but to all if he wanted them. 

While my talk with Harry drew out no com- 
plaint with regard to the manner in which the 

63 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

battle started or terminated, yet I drew from his 
manner that it was not staged exactly according 
to Marquis of Queensbury rules. He told me 
that of the four goats stretched out before us. 
Cap had killed three and he one out of a band of 
twenty-four; furthermore, that Cap had opened 
fire on them first at a distance of sixty yards, 
killing a nanny, a 3-year-old and a kid; Harry 
killed a nanny as she scrambled over the green 
sward in her effort to get away. 

As we needed another lamb, and as a small 
band comprising a lamb was at that time hover- 
ing around the precipices 500 feet above and 
half a mile away, I decided to try for it while my 
companions finished the dressing of those already 
killed. On my way up I noticed a lone goat in 
the ledges above the others that I was stalking, 
he having been seen by me in the same position 
an hour or two before. Evidently he was an old 
biUie, as he acted different in remaining alone 
than I thought a nanny would. My path in 
stalking the group containing the lamb led me 
straight toward the billie, who was higher than 
they and 400 yards farther away. I didn't use 
the glasses on him, and he was so far away that I 
couldn't tell the sex. While sneaking on the 
small band (which were nervously running back 
and forth, but hidden at times from my sight 
by a shoulder of the mountain), I had not 
thought seriously of trying for him, yet when 
later the little bunch disappeared, as per gun 

64 



IN THE GOAT AND GLACIER FIELDS 

signal from Harry, who with Cap stood below 
watching the proceedings, I decided I would 
make a try for the old goat's hide. It was im- 
possible to keep out of sight of him, and just 
about as difficult to travel in any but a straight 
line toward him. Therefore I had small hopes 
of his ever standing for me until within range. 
The climbing was very steep, necessitating fre- 
quent rests, yet that old mountaineer stood still, 
apparently eyeing me with but Httle concern. 
It was a novelty in game hunting to see an 
animal act this way. I imagine that there is 
something to the statement made later by one 
of the guides that when they are above you and 
in the cliffs as this one was, they feel more secure. 
Certainly if he had been a hundred miles above 
me he couldn't have acted more contented. 

Finally ''after many waits to rest I reached a 
point beyond which I feared to go, and which I 
thought was about 400 yards from him. Harry, 
always complimentary in his remarks, was good 
enough to say it was 500 yards. I knelt down 
and took aim, noting that the front sight more 
than covered him. When I fired I noticed the 
spatter of the bullet on the ledge a foot or two 
above and that it threw rock splinters all around 
him. He started to run to the right, then came 
back the other way, and finally stood for the 
second shot. As soon as I fired, I knew I hit him, 
as there was no sound in the rocks and no shower 
of them as before. He walked a few steps and 

65 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

laid down^ then collapsed and rolled off the ledge, 
bounding over several precipices in his drop. 

I shouted so Harry and Cap would know, but 
this was unnecessary as they had watched the 
whole stalk from start to finish and gave back a 
v/elcoming cheer. I couldn't see him after he 
landed, as he lay in a gulch hidden by sharp 
projections, but I knew he was too far away and 
too hard to reach for me to go and disembowel 
him. Cap had warned us before that, in order 
to get safely across the glacier by dark, it would 
be necessary to descend the mountain and reach 
the horses by 4 o'clock — and it was now past 4. 

We reached the horses just before 6, having 
joined another contingent of our party on the 
way down the mountain. Rogers was very weak, 
having gone without lunch. We had warned 
him that he would need it on such a hard climb, 
but with an indifferent, *'0h, I never eat lunch 
in the hills,'' he sauntered away without the 
mid-day snack. But we all noticed that our 
taxidermist not only always carried a lunch after 
that^ but that he ravenously devoured it as well. 
After joining the rest of our party we learned that 
Billy Wooden had also killed a goat, presum- 
ably a billy, which was dropped in a very in- 
accessible gulch too precipitous to negotiate that 
day owing to the lateness of the hour. We 
reached camp at 8 -.30 p. m., after being two and 
a half hours on the ice field. 

It wasn't a very difficult matter, for those of 

66 



IN THE GOAT AND GLACIER FIELDS 

us who could, to rest in camp the following day 
while Longley, Wooden and Rogers went after 
the five goat hides and meat. They started in a 
drizzle which later cleared a little, but the slow 
rain was intermittent until nightfall. During 
the day Charlie Baxter (the White Horse guide) 
came thru with Mr. Corcoran. The outfit 
stopped long enough for us to exchange greet- 
ings. Having met all the members of the party 
before, it was very pleasant to have their trail 
in the hills cross ours. 

This idle day in camp gave William and me 
an opportunity to enjoy a very pleasant diver- 
sion from the camp routine — that of giving 
Jimmy, our cook, orders on baking a birthday 
cake for Harry. William had "soft-pedaled'' 
some of us the information while at McCarthy 
that his father would pass his 50th milestone in 
camp, and, in order that his half-century mark 
might not go by forgotten we collected some can- 
dles in McCarthy. These we brought forth and 
handed to our Japanese boy with the admonition 
that he must be prepared to bake the camp cake 
of his life. We appropriated the mess-tent for 
our collusion, and barred all from entrance 
during the day. When night fell we had a cake 
fit for the gods, with beautiful white frosting 
and two colors of gingerbread trimming. We 
had a big feed that night, and were in the middle 
of it when the boys, rain-soaked and cold, came 
in with the skins and meat. Harry was com- 

67 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

pletely surprised when Jimmy produced the 
cake, as he had no idea of such a thing being 
sprung on him. A few impromptu presents were 
produced, one being a hunting knife, and one 
from William, being a promise that he'd try to 
emulate his father's good example in everything. 
Harry simply gasped out his thanks, telling us 
between quick breaths how much he thought of 
us all, and that he never so thoroly enjoyed a 
birthday in his life. The felicitations on both 
sides flowed like water until bed time, about 
lo o'clock. 

The return of the boys with the skins was the 
occasion for a little jolt to me, as, when they 
reached my goat they learned that it was not a 
billy at all, but a nanny. Billy Wooden's **billy'' 
also turned out to be a nanny, much to his 
regret. 

When on the following morning we awoke to 
find it still raining we began to think that our 
trip had acted as a hoodoo on the weather. 
This was our seventh day out from McCarthy, 
and during that week there was not a day en- 
tirely free from rain. The boys wrangled and 
packed the horses in the rain and we mounted 
our steeds and departed across the Nizina 
Glacier in the rain. After crossing the ice we 
entered a pretty, forested valley — the Skolai — 
following it to Clark's roadhouse, which is no 
roadhouse at all, but merely the scene of one. 
We arrived at camp at 4 p. m.; distance traveled 

68 




nLkl 



IN THE GOAT AND GLACIER FIELDS 

during day, ten miles — a mileage negotiable by- 
auto on a good road in fifteen minutes; quite 
some comparison when you contemplate it. 

The information developed since our goat 
hunt on Finger Mountain (also called Rhinoc- 
eros Peak) that there was a better chance of 
getting billies on the mountain north of Finger 
Mountain and across Rohn Glacier from it (in 
fact, Mr. Baxter told us that billies were not 
found on Finger Mountain, so we decided to lay 
over a day at Clark's, and allow William and 
Rogers to try their luck for a male goat. There- 
fore, accompanied by Cap, Wooden and Shorty, 
they departed. Harry, Jimmie Brown and I 
thought we'd put in the time riding up the trail 
a few miles to the Frederika (the route of our 
proposed ride on the morrow), in the hope that 
we might see a bear. We saw the fresh track of 
a little black bear that led us up the Skolai and 
onto Frederika Glacier, but, losing it on the 
glacier we returned to camp, after traveling about 
fifteen miles. The other members returned at 
8 p. m. and reported that Baxter's outfit (guiding 
Mr. Corcoran) had beat them to the mountain 
aimed for, and that, as far as they could see and 
learn, the other party had succeeded in getting 
some billy goats. Wooden reported that he and 
WiUiam had crawled up to within 150 yards of a 
ram, which William missed. 



69 



Third Chapter 



RUSSELL GLACIER 



THE SPELL OF THE YUKON 

I've stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow 

That's plumb-full of hush to the brim ; 
I've watched the big, husky sun wallow 

In crimson and gold, and grow dim. 
Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming. 

And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop ; 
And I've thought that I surely was dreaming, 

With the peace o' the world piled on top. 

The summer — no sweeter was ever ; 

The sunshiny woods all athrill ; 
The grayling aleap in the river. 

The bighorn asleep on the hill. 
The strong life that never knows harness ; 

The wilds where the caribou call ; 
The freshness, the freedom, the farness — 

O God ! how I'm stuck on it all. 

There's a land where the mountains are nameless. 

And the rivers all run God knows where ; 
There are lives that are erring and aimless. 

And deaths that just hang by a hair; 
There are hardships that nobody reckons ; 

There are valleys unpeopled and still ; 
There's a land — oh, it beckons and beckons. 

And I want to go back — and I will. 

— Robert Service, 



THIRD CHAPTER 
RUSSELL GLACIER 

* I ''HE morning of August i8th found us 
^ packing up at Clark's for the fourteen- 
mile ride up the Skolai River to Skolai Lake. 
The air was most refreshing, and the hillsides 
reflected all the variegated shades of green. 
While we were to pass above timberline on the 
ride today, yet we started in a spot beautifully 
clothed in timber. The deciduous foliage was 
now beginning to receive its autumnal color — 
about a month ahead of the time in which it is 
painted in Colorado — but as the pines were 
greatly in the majority here the yellow spots 
seemed only as light siftings sprinkled among 
the green. As the leaf-shedding timber of this 
country buds out about June ist it will be seen 
that it remains green only for about two and one- 
half to three months, or a couple of months less 
time than in Colorado. 

The crossing of the Frederika River (which 
issues from the Frederika Glacier and flows into 
the Skolai some seven miles above Clark's) was 
accomplished with some difliculty, including a 
few leg drenchings, but after all the packs were 

73 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

safely across we settled back into single file up 
the Skolai again and were happy. A red fox 
streaked across our forward trail and took shelter 
in the canon below, while our timberline eleva- 
tion brought us in close proximity to several 
eagles, whose buoyant circles and raucous calls 
were taken as signals that we were welcome to 
their domain. If these birds should be satisfied 
with rodents, offal, etc., for their menu, I would 
feel inclined to like them; but considering the 
great menace they are to young game, especially 
lambs and kids, I am heartily in sympathy with 
the Alaskan view that they should be killed 
whenever possible. The present 50-cent bounty 
is totally inadequate to keep their numbers- 
down below the point of danger to sheep and 
other game. When a lamb is born nearly every 
eagle, it seems, within 5omiles of the scene, knows 
it, and by striking it with their wings, by at- 
tacking it with their beaks and claws, and other- 
wise harrassing it, they soon topple it over a cliff, 
where it furnishes a rich morsel for their ghoulish 
appetites. 

Skolai Basin (also called Skolai Lake and 
Skolai Pass — altho it is not the summit of the 
pass) was reached at 5 p. m. in a rain storm. 
They say that if there is any rain or snow in the 
country it will fall here — a sort of magnet, it 
seems, for all trading winds, and blizzards. 
Being above timberline (elevation 4,300 ft.) no 
timber shelter was available and consequently 

74 





2 
o 

03 
O 



RUSSELL GLACIER 

no material at hand for tent poles. We carried 
on the packs from our morning's camp enough 
wood for the cook-stove, but that was all. By 
erecting Harry's tentobed first it gave us a foun- 
dation from which to spread a tarp to cover the 
beds of William, Rogers and myself, so we were 
soon at ease on that score. Jimmie, the cook, 
soon had his stove up and a-blazing, and by 
stretching a tarp from one bush to another next 
the stove he had a very eflFective windbreak, 
altho the cooking and eating were all accom- 
plished in the rain. 

The guides all bunked together in the edge of 
the bushes after stretching canvas over the alders 
where their beds were laid. Jimmie made a sort 
of camouflage lean-to near the stove, but got 
pretty badly wet before morning. Altogether 
it was a very uncomfortable night, and therefore 
we felt in no mood upon arising to enjoy the 
beautiful scenery hereabouts. 

The first ptarmigan encountered on the trip 
was seen the following morning — a covey of only 
three or four. In fact, ptarmigan were rarely 
seen. I doubt if more than twenty-five of these 
birds were met with by all the members of our 
party while out, and not more than half a dozen 
rabbits. A couple or so years before they were 
both found there in great numbers. From what 
I could learn, both the ptarmigan and rabbits 
die oflF after they become so plentiful that the 
food Dlays out. Then a plague seems to take 

75 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

them, and they die by the wholesale. I am told 
that the apex of their abundance is reached about 
every seven years. That is their death-knell, 
and the following year there isn't a rabbit nor a 
ptarmigan to be found. Gradually, however, 
they begin to come back and continue to increase 
for seven years, when again the plague seizes 
them and they disappear as before. I conclude, 
of course, that all these birds and animals could 
not be killed off at each recurring period, other- 
wise there would be no seed left for reproduction. 
I wonder if such a plague could have wiped 
away our passenger pigeons, which disappeared 
so suddenly and mysteriously from our midst 
many years ago. 

Not a great while back there were no coyotes 
to be found on the White River, but now they 
are working into that country, and it may not 
be many years before they will be as great a men- 
ace to the game of Alaska and Yukon Territory 
as they are now to the stock and game of the 
States. 

As we topped the boggy eminence that morn- 
ing above our Skolai camp we beheld that gorge- 
ful of glistening ice known as Russell Glacier, 
straight ahead and a mile away. The mouth of 
this great ice-mass stretched across the stream 
bed for a mile or two, resembling at this distance 
a great long strip of canvas pegged down at 
either end by the rocky promontories of the 
gulch. Soon we climbed up on its slippery sur- 

76 



RUSSELL GLACIER 

face, and were trailing on an ice bed beside which 
Nizina and Regal (crossed while hunting goats) 
paled to mere insignificance. It is twelve miles 
across Russell, and each mile traveled is danger- 
ous and difficult. From the headwaters of the 
Skolai River (which is fed by Russell Glacier) 
we cross over on the ice to the head of the White 
River, which also finds its source in the same 
glacier. In other words, Russell Glacier is the 
divide between McCarthy and the White River 
country. 

Russell Glacier is composed about half of 
white ice and half of moraine. The former, of 
course, is pure ice, but for the benefit of those who 
do not know it may be well to rudely and briefly 
describe the moraine. To glance over certain 
parts of its mountainous surface, where the 
gashes and precipices do not disclose the ice, one 
would liken it to a very hilly formation com- 
posed of broken, angular-shaped lava rock, or 
shale rock, so frequently found in our moun- 
tains. These rocks run in size from a grain of 
sand to a cook stove, averaging, perhaps, two or 
three inches in size. They form a sort of coating 
or dressing over the ice bed, this coating running 
in thickness from an inch to several feet, averaging 
about six inches. It is more treacherous to travel 
than the white ice, for the reason that either 
horse or man is apt to depend on it to hold when 
it will not. On a sharp dechvity, where the 
greatest support is needed, the horse, fooled by 

77 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

this gravel and rock coating, ofttimes goes 
sprawling, depending on his skating ability and 
balance to land right side up at the foot of the 
slide. 

Cave-ins are almost constantly occurring ow- 
ing to the movement of the glacier and the melt- 
ing of the ice; therefore a good trail today may 
be torn out by an ice-slide tomorrow. On a great 
part of Russell Glacier no trail at all is visible, 
but over the most dangerous sections used by 
prospectors, packers, trappers and guides, the 
travelers have found it of advantage to follow 
certain well-defined courses. The travel has in 
these spots beaten down the rocks into a fairly, 
visible trail. Occasionally it was found neces- 
sary to stop the outfit long enough to chop the 
ice from a hillside to fill a dangerous "gulch'* or 
to hew down an impossible ice barrier, too slip- 
pery to chmb. For this purpose ice picks and 
axes were always kept on top of the packs for 
quick use. 

Four sheep were seen from this morning's 
camp at Skolai Pass, and a band of some twenty- 
five or thirty were later noticed on one of the 
mountains flanking Russell Glacier as we passed. 

After six hours of very nervous travel on the 
glacier, we came out on the bank of the ice-field, 
which was in fact its east mouth. Down this 
bank for 300 yards we scrambled, slid and rolled 
to the flat gravel bed of the White River, and our 
glacier travel was ended until the return. 

78 



RUSSELL GLACIER 

We followed down the bar of the White for ten 
miles to camp at North Fork Island — a collection 
of very substantial cabins built (except one two- 
story cabin) by Howard H. Fields, of the Ameri- 
can Smelting & Refining Co., Denver, Colo. 
Mr. Fields spent some time in Alaska during the 
Shushanna gold rush. They cost thousands of 
dollars to construct but can now be bought for 
$50.00. 

They are now entirely deserted except for the 
"patronage" they receive from passing prospec- 
tors, hunters and trappers. On the way into 
camp William, saw a very fresh bear track. Shorty 
a fresh moose track and I a nearly fresh bear track. 
The river bar was well tracked up with old signs, 
and our hopes mounted to lofty heights as we 
contemplated on what we would do to the wearers 
of those hoofs and claws later on. 

This was a hard day on all — men and horses 
alike. We had covered twenty-six miles from 
our Skolai camp, twelve of which was over the 
glacier, and we all felt very tired. 

The next morning broke in a drizzle. Feeling 
that we might run short of salt, and knowing 
that we would need more bacon, we sent Jimmie 
Brown over to Shushanna (the old mining camp, 
2S miles distant — now a collection of a dozen or 
so occupied houses) for these two commodities. 
He took a pack horse, and came up with us a 
few days later at the Kletsan camp. The 200 
pounds of salt that he bought cost 35 cents a 

79 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

pound, or $70 for the lot, while 35 pounds of 
bacon cost 70 cents a pound (they usually add 
about 25 cents a pound for freighting). These 
prices did not seem exorbitant when we were in- 
formed that ore costs $1,100 a carload for ship- 
ping charges alone from Kennecott to Cordova, 
196 miles. 

We got started for the Kletsan about 10 
o'clock, following down the White for eighteen 
miles. Signs of moose and bear were seen all 
along the trail, and on this account Harry, Cap 
and I headed the procession, expecting to jump 
game at any time. By far the most of the bear 
tracks seen during the day were grizzly — some 
of them large, about 7 or 73<^ in. across front paw. 
When at 5 o'clock we unpacked at the first per- 
manent camp of our trip — the Kletsan, eleva- 
tion 3,000 ft. — we counted thirty- two sheep 
(ovis dalli — there are no other species in this 
country) on the famous old sheep mountain 
across the White River from our camp, about 
five miles away (elevation about 7,000 ft.). 
This eminence we later named Mount Figgins, 
in honor of the director of our museum, J. D. 
Figgins. (I have applied to Washington to have 
it officially named and the one at Skolai Lake 
called James Peak, in honor of Harry C. James, 
my co-worker and companion on this trip.) 



80 



Fourth Chapter 



SHEEP— BOTH WHITE AND DARK— 
A DIGRESSION 



FOURTH CHAPTER 

SHEEP— BOTH WHITE AND DARK— A 
DIGRESSION 

"IXZE were now camped within a few hours' 
^^ walk of the mountain that was destined 
to yield us the greatest number of sheep 
trophies of any spot on the line of our journey. 
And next morning we were to start hunting 
for these rare animals — a species of our Ameri- 
can wild life than which there is none more 
interesting, none so little understood, none 
shrouded in greater mystery. For Mr. and Mrs. 
Ovis have only been close friends of ours for 
something like loo years — a very short spell 
from the scientist's standpoint. The Lewis & 
Clark expedition (which in 1804-05 traversed 
the most ideal sheep ranges on this continent) 
knew nothing authentic about the bighorn — in 
fact, when these animals were killed by its mem- 
bers for meat there was some doubt cast as to 
their being sheep at all. Considering the fact 
that Mother Nature holds no bones of the ovis 
family in her cemetery, I am just a little puzzled 
at the^variety of species that some of our scientists 

• 83 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

recognize in these animals. For of course it 
takes great periods of time for even the process of 
evolution to scatter and perpetuate the seeds of 
species, or even sub-species. 

I have looked up the latest publications on 
sheep (Miller, U. S. National Museum), and to my 
amazement find he now recognizes thirteen spe- 
cies and varieties, not counting fanniniy which is 
recognized as a cross between stonei and dalli. 

Regarding the name **bighorn:'* the general 
name for the entire genera is **mountain 
sheep,'' or just **sheep.'' "Bighorn,*' in its pop- 
ular application, refers only to first known cana- 
densis — the others being designated as DalFs 
sheep. Stone's sheep. Nelson's sheep, etc. In- 
cidentally, the name canadensis is incorrect, but 
long usage establishes it. It was described as 
canadensis by Shaw in 1804, but some two 
months earlier, Desmarest called it cervina. 

In 1885, True called it montanus^ and in 1891 
Merriam reverted to canadensis. In 19 12, Allen 
proved cervina was the proper name because of 
priority of the name. As Shaw used Desmarest's 
type specimen for his name canadensis^ he has 
since been under suspicion, but the long use of 
the name establishes it apparently, and besides, 
why should we enter the quarrel at this late day? 

As stated elsewhere in this work I thoroughly 
disagree with the recognition of the long list of 
subspecific varieties. I can only see two main 
SDecies — dalli and canadensis, 

84 



SHEEP— BOTH WHITE AND DARK 

Below is a list of the mountain sheep given by- 
Miller, together with the type locahty of each: 

Ovis canadensis canadensis: "Bighorn"; mountains on Bow 

River, near Calgary, Alberta. 
*Ovis canadensis auduboni: Upper Missouri, S. D. (I think this 
was the original type locality of canadensis, but the names 
have been changed and a new type locality given to the 
"bighorn." 
*Ovis canadensis calijorniana: Near Mt. Adams, Yakima 

County, Wash. 
*Ovis canadensis cremnobates: Matomi, San Pedro Martir Moun- 
tain, Lower California. 
*Ovis canadensis gaillardi: Between Tinajas Altas and Mexican 

boundary line, Yuma County, Arizona. 
*Owj canadensis Sieri'ae: Mt. Baxter, Inyo County, California. 
*OwJ canadensis texiana: "Texas mountain sheep"; Guadalupe 

Mountains, El Paso County, Tex. 
Ovis cowani: Cowan's mountain sheep. Near Mt. Logan, 

British Columbia. 
Ovis dalli dalli: Dall's mountain sheep. West of Ft. Reliance, 

Alaska. 
Ovis dalli kenaiensis: Kenai mountain sheep. Kcnai Peninsula, 

Alaska. 
Ovis fannini: Fannin's mountain sheep. No longer recognized 

as a sub-species. 
Ovis mexicana: Mexican mountain sheep. Lake Santa Maria, 

Chihuahua, Mexico. 
Ovis nelsoni: Nelson's sheep. Grapevine Mountains, Cali- 
fornia-Nevada boundary. 
Ovis stonei: Stone's mountain sheep. Stikine River, B. C. 

While the nervous waters were battering down 
and wearing away the bridge that then con- 
nected Alaska and Kamchatka, Old Man Big- 
horn sallied eastward, he and his kin, into the 

*No common name. 

85 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

country which later became his home, and which 
now extends from the Sierra Madres to the 
Arctic Circle. 

One hundred years ago sheep had not all been 
driven to the higher elevations, but were found 
in plenteous numbers as far east as the tablelands 
of the Dakotas, Western Nebraska, etc. The 
encroach of the hunter and the homesteader in 
later years drove these bands that were living 
low, to higher ground in the mountains; thence 
at a still later period to the rocky cliffs of the 
mountains and the stretches around timberline. 
(I do not mean to infer that sheep at that period 
were not found also in plentiful numbers in the 
Rockies — even above timberline — for they were; 
but in addition to their natural habitat in the 
higher mountains, they had drifted eastward to 
the tablelands mentioned.) 

Just as there are in reality only three species 
of bears (the grizzly, black and Polar — all others 
being sub-species), so also are the main species of 
sheep confined — namely to two, the ovis cana- 
densis and ovis dalli. The ovis nelsoni, ovis 
mexicana, ovis cremnobates, etc., are all branches 
of the family canadensis, while the ovis fannini, 
as stated elsewhere, is merely a cross between 
ovis stonei and ovis dalli. As you come south 
from the real home of the dalli (the Kenai Penin- 
sula and the mainlands east of it) you find black 
hairs mixed with the white of these animals. 
The farther you journey south toward the nat- 

86 



SHEEP— BOTH WHITE AND DARK 

ural home of the stonei (the Cassiar Mountains 
of British Columbia and some surrounding terri- 
tory) the more pronounced in numbers these 
black and dark-colored hairs become, until ovis 
stonei is found. (Most of the sheep collected by 
our expedition were found on close inspection to 
have plenty of black hairs, although they were 
so hmited as not to be seen at even so short a 
distance as ten or twelve feet.) 

At the present day sheep are almost oblit- 
erated in the United States except in Wyoming, 
Montana and Idaho — and even in the latter two 
States it has been found advisable to place a per- 
petual closed season on them. At the present 
time big-horn sheep may be killed only in one 
State of the Union — Wyoming — and I anticipate 
that an absolute closed season will be placed on 
them at Wyoming's present Assembly, thereby 
rendering the big-horn immune from rifle fire 
in every State of the Union. Thus shall have 
passed from the sportsman's pursuit one of the 
most highly-prized and picturesque of the 
American wild animals. 

John B. Burnham, president of the American 
Game Protective and Propagation Association 
(of which every American sportsman should be a 
member), and who has hunted all the different 
varieties of big game in nearly every section of 
this continent, writes me concerning sheep: 

"If not today, the time is not far distant when 
in dollars and cents sheep will be the most val- 

87 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

uable game in North America. Sportsmen will 
go farther for sheep than any other game except 
bears." 

The breeding season for sheep extends from 
the 15th of November until the first of February, 
depending on weather and physical conditions, 
as well as location. The most common period is 
from about November 25th to January ist, the 
January rutting being very exceptional. Lambs 
are dropped usually from May 15th to June 25th 
in the States among the canadensis family, but 
on the White River the period usually runs a 
little earlier — from May ist to May 20th. 
Ordinarily but one lamb is born, but I believe 
after the ewe's first young she will have two 
quite frequently. 

The successful sheep hunter must, perforce, 
have the game vision developed to the very 
highest order of perfection. He should be a good 
climber, strong of heart and limb and a good 
game shot. While many sheep are killed at a dis- 
tance under 100 yards, yet most of them are shot 
at ranges far exceeding these figures. A man 
doesn't have to be a good target shot in order to 
be a successful sheep hunter. He may be able 
to make 90 to 95 regularly at the target range 
and absolutely fail when shooting at sheep. 
The prime requisites are a cool head, ordinary 
ability to judge distances quickly, and good 
marksmanship qualities. I am now speaking 
of the man who would do a considerable amount 

88 




upper picture— A "kettle-biled" lunch in the caribou country. 
Middle— How a sheep specimen was damaged by eagles. 
Lower — A large white sheep. 



SHEEP—BOTH WHITE AND DARK 

of sheep hunting and not of the one who would 
go out on a single trip for these animals. In the 
latter case he might accidentally run onto a big 
ram during the first day*s hunting, and might 
also be able to kill his ram at twenty-five yards. 
Such luck as this, however, seldom falls to the 
lot of the sheep hunter. 

Apropos of the subject of approaching sheep 
at close range, I believe Ned Frost, the Wyoming 
guide, has had more extraordinary experiences 
than anyone I know of. Writing to me on the 
subject he says: 

**I once had a good-sized ram come up to me 
where I was eating my lunch and after working 
around, and sizing me up from all sides, he 
finally came right up to me and actually licked 
my hand, and I could see myself in his eye, just 
like looking in a small mirror; but when I made 
a grab at his front legs, thinking that perhaps I 
might be able to throw him and get him in alive, 
he got really frightened and showed that he was 
a real sure-enough wild sheep by getting down 
off that mountain and up the other side of the 
canon and on over the highest peak in sight with- 
out hardly stopping to look back. I would not 
have liked to tackle the job of getting within 
rifle range of him again that day. 

"Another rather queer thing happened to 
Judge Ford, of New York City, and myself, 
during September, 1915, while hunting near the 
headwaters of the Shoshone in Wyoming. We 

89 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

had been watching a couple of bunches of sheep 
for some time, and one lot of seven being 
right in line with where we were going, we ex- 
posed ourselves to their view, and watched re- 
sults. Six of them *beat it' at once, but the other 
one never moved, and we found later that he was 
sound asleep in the sun, and he never woke up 
till we were just opposite him and about a couple 
of hundred yards away. Then as he got up and 
saw no sheep close by, he evidently made up his 
mind we were sheep, and here he came, right 
up to within five feet of us, and then seemed 
much surprised to find we were not his kind of 
people at all. But still he was not frightened 
enough to beat it, but kept walking around us 
within a few yards as tho trying to make us out 
to be sheep anyway. He was only a yearling — 
but show me the yearling elk, deer or any other 
wild animal that would exhibit such boneheaded- 
ness! It was just such doings as this that made 
me think that they were not much on the scent, 
and I have proven it to myself many times, and 
even that same day I took Judge Ford right up 
to within thirty yards of seventeen ewes and 
lambs with the wind blowing straight from us to 
them.'* 

I do not profess to be an expert sheep hunter. 
If I could consider myself such I would feel that 
I had reached the very highest pinnacle of hunt- 
ing proficiency. 

There is so much real art, woods lore, tracking 

90 



SHEEP— BOTH WHITE AND DARK 

sense, leg muscle and marksmanship wrapped 
in the make-up of such an one that I have not 
even the faintest suspicion that I will ever reach 
that distinction. But I have been out with good 
sheep hunters and have seen their work. I have 
had them point out sheep to me at 600 to 1,000 
yards with the naked eye that I would have passed 
by as nothing more important than gray rocks on 
the distant cliffs, or shimmering sun pranks on 
stumps or logs. I have had them pick up what 
appeared to me at first glance as deer tracks, but 
which when followed a few yards turned out to be 
sheep tracks. This may sound odd to the hunter, 
but I had this very thing happen many years ago 
while hunting with Ned Frost, guide, in Wyo- 
ming. His attention was first directed to the 
track. It was not plain, or we could have arrived 
at the correct solution immediately, but rather 
ruffled up in loose, dry dirt. The toe points 
came together so closely that I remarked that it 
was **only a deer track.*' Ned said it did re- 
semble a deer track a little, but he was satisfied it 
was sheep, and such it proved to be when we 
finally worked it out. This illustrates one of the 
finer points of sheep hunting. I am satisfied 
that many sheep hunters would have passed by 
this track with no notice. While it was made by 
a ram too small for us to consider, it might have 
been the trail of an old fellow with a 17-inch head. 
There is a factor in sheep hunting that makes 
it one of the most dangerous of American hunt- 

91 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

ing sports. In making this statement I do not 
wish to discourage sportsmen from engaging in it, 
for the danger is not so great as that. However, 
as compared to grizzly bear hunting, I consider 
that sheep hunting is the more dangerous to Hfe 
and limb. I am carrying in my memory some 
narrow escapes from permanent injury and death 
that I have both experienced and witnessed. I also 
have some well-developed rheumatic germs that 
were received into my system through exposure 
on the head of Gravel Bar, Wyo., many years 
ago, while hunting with Lawrence Nordquist, 
of Cody, Wyo., as guide. Our camp was located 
on the Sunlight River at an elevation of 7,000 
feet. A few days before, from a different camp, 
we had seen sheep on the side of a peak rising up 
from Gravel Bar. On this particular morning 
we left camp at 7 a. m., and at 2 p. m. reached 
the summit at an elevation of 11,400 feet, after 
zigzagging considerably. We then descended on 
the other side 600 feet, but found no sheep. We 
saw their tracks made the day we had seen the 
sheep from above the other camp, but that was 
all. So we decided to return to camp by different 
routes, and at 3 :2o p. m. we separated, Lawrence 
going back by the Gravel Bar side and I descend- 
ing by the way we had come up. On returning, 
however, I saw tracks leading around the other 
side of the peak from that by which we had 
ascended, so I changed my course and decided to 
follow them. They led me among almost in- 

92 



SHEEP— BOTH WHITE AND DARK 

accessible rim rocks, slides and cliffs, and when I 
had covered a half mile on this side of the peak 
I began to wish I had taken our morning's trail. 
Soon I came to a point where I had to halt 
against the glazy side of an unclimbable rim. 
I simply could go no farther that way, so was 
compelled to follow the only course — climb up- 
wards over the top of the peak. This I did after 
much difficulty, crawling and dragging myself 
over the knife-like edge of the summit at 6:30 
p. m. — nearly dark in Wyoming the last of 
September. 

Here I was, 4,400 feet (I always carry an 
aneroid barometer) in elevation above camp, 
four miles distant, and 1,000 feet above timber- 
Hne, with the task of descending by a route over 
which, at places, my guide and I had to assist 
each other in ascending — and this feat to be 
performed in the dark. It almost gives me a 
nightmare, even now, when I think of the ex- 
periences of that night. Ordinarily I would have 
made camp at timberline, but I was so set on 
getting in for a little sleep and a change of camp 
next day, that the camping-out theory received 
the cold shoulder from me. In some places I had 
to drop over precipitious rocks six to ten feet, 
depending on good luck in how I landed at the 
bottom. I held to insecure roots, shrubs, etc., 
in climbing down, which at times gave way, 
precipitating me down backwards eight or ten 
feet. This was kept up until about 10:30 p. m. 

93 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

when I made the descent of the mountain proper, 
but I was now in a dense forest with down tim- 
ber, and only starlight to guide me. Anyone who 
has ever traveled in a heavy pine forest after 
night knows what little light sheds through. I 
arrived at camp after fording the Sunlight River 
four times, hip deep in places, at just midnight, 
my limbs bleeding in a dozen places, blood on 
my face from a fall (and this smeared all over my 
physiognomy from frequent use of my handker- 
chief), and altogether the most dilapidated look- 
ing vagabond that had been seen in those parts 
for many a day — and the Sunlight River District 
has seen some tough-looking ones in her time. 
I had also an experience in Montana in 191 1 
that I shall not soon forget. Johnny Ballenger 
and I were hunting sheep on the upper reaches of 
Grizzly Creek, in the Hell-Roaring country north 
of Gardiner. While on the very precipitous side 
of a mountain we came to an old snow bank. 
The snow, except for an inch or two that had 
recently fallen, was as hard as ice and descended 
down a gulch at an angle of about 45°. It was 
about fifty feet across, and 300 feet long, and as 
it dropped over a precipice 50 yards below us we 
felt that there was no way to get around it. 
Johnny got over it first, and stood, watching my 
progress, a few yards below the point that I was 
headed for. When within ten feet of the goal I 
slipped and fell, but luckily landed in a sitting 
position. Before I could jab my gun stock in 

94 . 



SHEEP— BOTH WHITE AND DARK 

the snow I found myself slipping. Then, quickly, 
I stuck the gun stock in the snow on my right. 
This almost upset me, and I tried to dig my heels 
in the ice-like surface, but, failing in this, and 
accumulating momentum as I slowly slid for- 
ward I again jammed the gun stock in, this time 
holding it between my legs. I was not making 
much success at this when I passed Johnny's 
position, and, hearing him call and looking up, 
I saw him holding out to me a long sarvis berry 
twig. I held to it and swung in to safety below 
him just as I was beginning to reahze the danger 
of my position. I was really not very much ex- 
cited until it was all over, but I slept very little 
that night, thinking of it. After that experience 
I haven't near as much nerve on icy or snowy 
sidling surfaces as I formerly had. 

Previous to my late trip to Alaska and Yukon 
Territory, my sheep hunting had been confined 
to Wyoming and Montana. In twenty-five 
years of hunting (during which time I have been 
a participant in more than a score of big game 
hunting trips in various parts of the continent) 
I am glad that the pursuit of ovis canadensis 
has claimed seven out of twenty-two of these 
trips, as follows: 

In 1900, in the company of J. A. Ricker and 
Dike Fisk, in the Big Blackfoot country of Mon- 
tana. 

In 1 907, with Ned Frost and Fred Richard, in the 
Wiggins Fork and GreybuU country of Wyoming. 

9S 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

In 1910, with W. B. Shore and Johnny Bal- 
lenger on Hell Roaring and Grizzly Creek, 
Montana. 

In 191 1, with Will Richard and Snaky Jim 
Goodman, on the South Fork of the Shoshone 
River, Wyoming. 

In 1 91 2, with Lawrence Nordquist and Dave 
(Red) Powell on the Sunlight River, Wyoming, 

In 1 9 14, with Ned Frost and Fred Richard on 
the North Fork of the Shoshone River, Wyo- 
ming. 

In 191 5, with E. S. Dykes and Fred Brown on 
Dinwoody River, Wyoming. 

The above named trips for sheep represent 
some strenuous physical efforts in the highest and 
ruggedest parts of the Rockies in Wyoming and 
Montana, each one filled with its regular quota 
of hardship, toil and that supremest test of all — 
enduring patience. When I contemplate that 
some men have returned from one hunting trip 
on which they have secured as large a number 
of sheep specimens (ovis stonei and ovis fannini) 
besides other game in addition, as I have killed 
on all my seven trips for ovis canadensis in the 
United States, I begin to wonder if I would be 
considered a very good sheep hunter — or if my 
poor showing is not in reality due to the superior- 
ity of ovis canadensis over ovis stonei and ovis 
fannini, in relation to their wariness and shrewd- 
ness in eluding pursuit. 

It is amusing to read statements made con- 

96 




§ 

a 
E 

CO 
o 

C 

CO 



SHEEP— BOTH WHITE AND DARK 

cerning the habits of sheep by men just returning 
from their initial trip for these animals — such, for 
instance, as: "Always get above your sheep, as, 
when frightened, they never run down hill; a 
sheep will *wind' you half a mile away; never 
take a horse into the sheep hills, if you expect to 
bag your game; if a ram sees you first, you might 
as well go to camp,*' etc., etc. 

I may say in reply to such statements (I am not 
able to enumerate here all that I have read of 
this character), that it is impossible for a man 
to learn an animaFs habits sufficiently to set 
himself up as an authority, with the experiences 
of only one or two trips to go by. In fact, I 
should consider that such a man would be apt 
to give out some very dangerous (from a natural 
history standpoint) information, rather than in- 
structive, for the reason that animals, like per- 
sons, are freaky in their traits, and this man 
might witness some phenomenal or exceptional 
act on one trip that might never be seen again 
in a hundred years. 

To illustrate: My guide and I frightened sheep, 
in sight, from a mountain two miles away, in 
Wyoming; and yet at another time three rams 
sauntering down towards us on the opposite hills 
in a quartering direction not over 400 yards 
away (while we in turn were traveling towards 
them, on horseback), didn't see us. Even our 
quick action in dismounting did not disturb them. 
One of these rams was the biggest and darkest I 

97 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

have ever seen, reminding us somewhat of a 
musk-ox in appearance at the distance seen. 
From concealed positions behind our horses we 
watched the httle procession as it moved slowly 
toward us^ then turned and v/alked over a rise 
out of sight. There were no obstructions of any 
sort to interfere with vision, for we were on the 
grassy slopes above the timberline. These sheep 
(or at least the old leader — for the ones in the 
rear are not so apt to be wary) simply had relaxed 
into a thoughtless state, just the same as some 
people do who, in crossing a street, suddenly 
butt into a street car or an automobile before 
being brought to. I am satisfied that if I should 
be permitted to go on a hundred sheep hunts 
and bag my game on each trip, I would never 
again encounter an experience with wild sheep 
like this one. If I had been a novice at the time 
I might have returned to civilization with some 
very startling disclosures regarding the tameness 
of the big-horn. 

I have been able to frighten ewes and lambs 
from a hillside half a mile away, with no other 
demonstration than quietly walking by; and yet 
I thumped a pebble from my thumb against a 
ewe's back ten yards away — and even then Ned 
Frost waved his coat almost in her face before 
she arose and skipped off with her lamb. 

I have ridden a horse up to where a ram could 
almost jump off a chff and alight on me while he 
stood watching us trail along up the gulch; in 

98 



SHEEP— BOTH WHITE AND DARK 

plain sight of him, we dismounted and sneaked 
in the timber under cover (our horse out in plain 
sight), from the openings of which we saw him 
continue to feed and finally lie down; and yet, 
under similar conditions except that we were 
afoot, at about the same distance, 300 or 400 
yards, I saw rams stand for a few seconds watch- 
ing us, only to suddenly flirt away as I raised my 
gun, and whom we trailed in the snow for three 
days over the most diflicult cHflFs and precipices in 
Montana — and then without success. 

I have seen rams take fright at what appeared 
to be my "wind" at a distance of hundreds of 
yards; and yet I successfully stalked a ram 
while he was lying down, with a fairly strong wind 
that carried my scent directly to him at a distance 
of 150 yards. 

After that experience, coupled with others 
that I have had in stalking rams, I am con- 
vinced that they haven't the keen scenting 
powers with which they are generally credited. 
In fact (at least in the pursuit of ovis canadensis), 
if I were to go on a sheep hunt again, and of 
course I hope to do so, I believe I should prac- 
tically eliminate the factor of wind in my stalk- 
ing. I know I should pay very little attention 
to it. This statement may cause a mild sensa- 
tion among some sheep hunters, but before allow- 
ing themselves to be convulsed with any violent 
emotion over it, I would advise, even though 
they may have had quite a little experience in 

99 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

sheep hunting themselves, that they consult 
with others of undoubted experience in this sport 
before passing censure on my remarks — or else go 
on some more sheep hunts themselves. I class 
the sheep's scenting qualities (at least the ovis 
canadensis, with which I have had more ex- 
perience than with the ovis dalli, or white sheep) 
about on a par with the bear's poor vision, and 
of course all bear hunters know how utterly 
lacking in sight Bruin is as compared to his 
scenting and hearing faculties. 



lOO 



Fifth Chapter 



ON THE SHEEP RANGES 



FIFTH CHAPTER 
ON THE SHEEP RANGES 

nr^HE morning following our arrival at our 
-■■ camp on Kletsan Creek (August 21st) we 
arose early with blood a-tingle, and nerves 
on edge for what turned out to be the most 
bungling stalk I have ever been guilty of sharing 
in. I have often dwelt on the importance of 
splitting up, or spreading out, in game hunting, 
in order to avoid a crowd while stalking, but in 
this instance the powers seem to have decreed 
otherwise, for we approached that game-laden 
mountain, on that most auspicious of all days, 
en masse, much as a regiment of soldiers would 
attack an enemy in the old way of the good old 
days. There were in the storming party Harry, 
William, Rogers and myself, as the would-be 
annihilators extraordinary; Cap and Wooden as 
guides, and Longley as horse wrangler (for we 
rode to the foot of the mountain, five miles, on 
horseback). The only reason we didn*t take 
Brownie, Shorty and Jimmy along, too, was be- 
cause Brownie had been sent to Shushanna for 
salt, and Shorty and Jimmie probably had better 
sense than to come. Of course we knew there 

103 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

were enough sheep on the mountain to supply a 
dozen museums — they were in sight along its 
five-mile comb nearly all the time — but they 
knew we were there, too, and they knew also 
that we weren't coming up for the purpose of 
giving them a tea party. 

After leaving the horses, just at the edge of 
timberline, in charge of Bill Longley, we climbed 
up a draw until a bunch of seven rams (young 
and old) came into view i,ooo feet above us. We 
ducked out of sight, then crawled until we could 
go no farther without exposing ourselves in 
crossing a ridge ahead. We lay in the under- 
brush and rocks for half an hour, hoping they 
would feed out of sight; but they didn't, so Cap 
and I retreated down the draw and skirted the 
ridge, coming up on the other side. About this 
time the other boys decided to move also, so 
when we circled the mountain we found them all 
lying under a protecting rock a few hundred 
feet above, waiting for us. When we reached 
them we advanced upward, keeping to the right 
of and under the ridge. Cap in the lead and Harry 
and I following; William and Rogers had fol- 
lowed the comb of the ridge, slightly above us. 
Suddenly Cap, who was fifty or one hundred feet 
ahead of us, motioned that he saw the rams, and 
soon we climbed to where we also could barely 
see their backs outhned against the sky on the 
ridge 200 yards away. Neither Harry nor I 
could see enough of them to shoot before they 

104 



ON THE SHEEP RANGES 

were gone. We continued for a few hundred 
yards farther. Cap still fifty feet or so in the 
lead, when again they appeared on the sky-line 
250 yards away, looking down at us. Cap raised 
his gun to shoot, but I stopped him. Due to our 
winded condition and our eflFort to get a solid 
footing before shooting (also to our trying to get 
out where their full bodies showed, as they made 
a very poor target for us, albeit a good one for 
Cap), they escaped before we could get a shot. 

Silently and sour we climbed to the top of the 
ridge, where we were joined by William, Rogers 
and Wooden. We reached the summit just in 
time to see the farewell salute of our quarry as it 
passed over the next ridge. It seemed now too 
late in the day to make another hunt, so, de- 
scending by another route to the westward we 
met Longley with the horses as per appointment, 
and rode to camp. While waiting for Longley 
and scouring the timber to find out if he had 
gone up or down, Harry saw something dark thru 
the deep foliage that looked like a moose. His 
surmise was later proven to be correct when 
William found the fresh sign of the animal where 
it had been standing. We reached camp at 
7 p. m. after a most unsatisfactory hunt. 

Next morning we all arose with a determined 
feeling that a repetition of the previous day's 
blunder should never occur again. William, 
Wooden, Rogers and Longley started for moose 
in the timber near camp, while Harry and Shorty 

105 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

went down the river five miles, also for moose, 
returning over the timbered ridge. Neither of 
these two parties was able to connect with game. 

Cap and I went up the Kletsan eight miles to 
the Jack Dalton cabin, expecting to hunt caribou 
on the barren ground above it. Six miles up we 
came to the **Too-Much'' Johnson cabin, a de- 
serted one-room affair built several years ago by 
a man of that name — later killed in a crevasse on 
the Shushanna Glacier. (A description of his 
tragic death was published in the preceding 
pages.) Since then the cabin has been occupied 
by any who can make use of it, but principally, 
■I beheve, by Capt. Erickson, a trapper. 

The ground about the cabin was fairly littered 
with the skins and horns of sheep, moose and 
caribou. A kennel built of logs and lying in the 
timber loo feet from the cabin for the shelter of 
dogs attested to the fact that these animals had 
been kept there. It seems that trappers in that 
country sometimes board sled dogs on game in 
the summer when not in use by mushers. We 
saw several old camps used for this purpose, 
often with that necessary adjunct, the kennel 
house, in close proximity. I have pointed out 
this danger to our game to officials of Alaska 
and Yukon Territory, and hope that the menace 
may some day be entirely obliterated. 

We reached the Dalton cabin about 1 1 o'clock 
and ate lunch. From here we saw three sheep 
on the upper mesas of the gulch opposite — 

1 06 



ON THE SHEEP RANGES 

nestled in the hills that skirted that beautiful 
summit, Mt. Natazhat. It was clear to us, how- 
ever, that they might as well have been on top 
of that mountain as where they were, for it would 
have been an utter impossibility to successfully 
stalk them. So we passed them up and climbed 
over the hill toward the caribou barrens, at the 
same time following the line of the Kletsan. 
We had gone but a mile or two when we came 
opposite the gulch adjoining the one in which we 
had seen the sheep, so turning the glasses into 
its upper reaches, we detected five sheep on a 
mesa three miles up the gulch, and lost no time 
in shuffling down thru the soft, silty soil to the 
Kletsan, across it and up toward the game. 
Tying the horses a mile and a half up the little 
canon, we then proceeded on foot, part of the 
time clinging to the walls and often walking the 
stream bed to keep from sight. 

Finally we reached two of the little "guts" 
leading up to the mesa, lying almost parallel. 
I took one of these and Cap the other on the 
plan that if one of us happened to miss arriving 
at the right spot, the other might. I took up 
the first of these and Cap the next one. We 
knew the sheep couldn't be over 200 or 300 
yards from where we stood when we started to 
climb, so we had to be very careful. When I 
reached a point near the summit of my climb I 
happened to look Cap's way and saw him clam- 
bering toward me over the ridge that lay between 

107 



IN THE ALASKA- YUKON GAMELANDS 

us, hat and arms in air, gesticulating and sign- 
talking in the most excited manner. The sub- 
stance of all his mute commands was for me to 
duck, that the sheep were just over the rim 
ahead of me — my position being directly on a line 
between the game and Cap. 

When he reached me we held a short pow-wow, 
the sense of which was that I was to take the first 
shot, after which we both were to whale away 
until we had secured what we wanted — provided, 
of course, that we must not shoot at any animal 
not desirable as a good specimen for the museum. 
With feverish expectancy we crawled to the top. 
Then, as we began to see things around us we 
went almost by inches. Finally we peered over 
and saw five sheep feeding in a grassy swale. 
The nearest was not over sixty yards away. 
There were two 3-year-olds (a male and a fe- 
male), two lambs and an ewe. I picked out the 
male 3-year-old and killed it with the first shot 
thru the shoulder. Then Cap opened up. In 
fact we were both able to get in a shot at the re- 
treating band before they dove into the gulch 
but a few yards beyond. We ran breathless to the 
rim of the gulch and saw them stretching tape 
like scared cats 300 yards away. I never saw a 
quicker get-away in my life. We both continued 
firing at them as they ran up the rocky gorge 
and at the fifth shot at 450 yards (measured) I 
dropped the ewe. She never moved after falling, 
as far as we could see at that distance. When 

108 



ON THE SHEEP RANGES 

we reached her she was dead, the .30 U. S. spitzer 
having entered the side and traveled diagonally- 
thru the body, emerging thru the shoulder, which 
was badly mangled. 

It was then 4 o'clock and by 6:30 we had them 
both measured, skinned and the available meat 
sorted out. While skinning out the young ram 
I noticed with interest the effect of the shot. 
The bullet (spitzer hard-pointed 150 grain — same 
as used on the ewe) had entered the shoulder 
without breaking it, but pulverized the opposite 
shoulder and all meat and bone within six inches 
of the path of exit, for it went thru the animal. 
When I saw the mess I remarked to Cap, "What 
would that bullet have done to a bear?" *Tar- 
alyzed 'im,'' said he. 

While we both were conscious of a certain 
satisfaction at the celerity of our accomplishment, 
yet an ominous sky and sudden sprinkle of rain 
boded an unpleasant return to camp, especially 
as we were now not less than eleven miles from 
that goal, over a most difficult route. 

Shouldering our bundles of meat, hides, guns 
and cameras (some of which were tied by ropes 
and straps that had been stowed away in our 
pockets for such an emergency as this) we made 
for the horses, a mile and a half down the gulch. 
This consumed about two hours, finding us both 
fairly wet and very warm at the end of the hike. 
At the horses. Cap, thinking of the hides first, 
wrapped them, against my vigorous protest, in 

109 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

his slicker, and rode to the Dalton cabin, him- 
self unprotected from the cold and rain. Even 
with my raincoat and oiled chaps I was very- 
cold and wet when we rode up to this cabin about 
9:30 in a heavy downpour. Here I insisted that 
we leave the meat and hides, so that Cap might 
use his slicker for himself during the balance of 
the way to camp. The night air was very cold 
and the rain, driven by a slight wind, was pene- 
trating. The eight-mile ride from here to camp 
was a long and tiresome one — intermixed with 
short stretches of walking to keep up our circula- 
tion. It continued raining all the way to camp, 
where we arrived at 12:15 a. m., soaked, cold 
and stiff. 

The following morning (Friday, Aug. 23rd) 
Cap and I were so sore and tired from the ex- 
periences of the preceding day that we didn't 
arise till 9 o'clock. The other members, except 
Harry, took a skirmish for moose and caribou, 
returning at 6 p. m., with the report that no 
game had been found but that some fresh caribou 
tracks were seen to adorn the otherwise very 
unattractive terrene. In the afternoon Harry 
and I took our horses on a ten-mile hunt up Camp 
Creek, but without result. 

On the morning of August 24th at 5^ we were 
routed out of bed by Jimmie's salubrious call. 
Our fighting army on this occasion was rep- 
resented by Harry James, Wm. James, Billy 
Wooden and Bill Longley in one aggregation, 

no 



ON THE SHEEP RANGES 

and by Cap and me in the other. It was planned 
that Unit No. i, composed of the afore-men- 
tioned hunters, should split at a convenient 
point on Figgins Mountain, thereby giving them 
the advantage of surrounding the helpless game 
and getting at one fell swoop what was desired 
for our museum and other museums yet unborn. 
This was to be a red-letter day to make up for 
the first 'fluke pulled off on this summit a few 
days previously. Cap and I, with colors flying 
and spirits simply effervescing with anticipation 
at what an awful calamity would befall the in- 
nocent victims of Figgins Mountain on this day, 
marched gloriously toward the opposite side of 
the hill from that for which our companions were 
destined. As we all crossed the boundary after 
fording the White, our hunting today was in 
Yukon Territory. 

After separating from our companions Cap 
and I followed the old Boundary Survey trail 
until we reached the draw up which w^e had de- 
cided to travel. Up to this point the going was 
miserable — the **nigger-heads," humm.ocks and 
swampy ground making it very difBcult and ner- 
vous work for the horses. While we were slowly 
riding up the draw leading thru the foothills of 
our mountain Cap suddenly stopped and waved 
me back. "Sheep!" he exclaimxcd, dismounting 
and leading his horse behind a protecting ridge. 
The glasses showed that his guess was correct, 
for a half mile away and i,ooo feet above was 

III 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

seen a band of six or seven rams. But they had 
selected a great outlook point and we almost 
despaired of ever being able to reach them. 

We tied our horses at timberline and climbed 
a 300-foot ridge to spy on them and figure out a 
means of approach. We found that by dropping 
down a little to our left we could gain the pro- 
tection of a friendly ridge, behind which it looked 
Hke we could climb pretty close to them. While 
crossing the gulch to this ridge we opened up 
some new country next to where the rams lay, 
on the slopes of which we saw some ewes and 
lambs, and which seemed easier for us to stalk 
than the rams. As we needed lambs, an ewe 
and some 2- or 3-year-olds for our groups, we 
decided it would be a nice pick-up to get 
within range of these, so we bent our energies 
accordingly. After an hour of hard climbing, 
first up the gulch and then up the side-hill, we 
found ourselves on the side of the ridge over- 
looking the sheep. This side-hill was almost a 
precipice in steepness, and to make it worse, it 
was composed of loose shale rock with the wind 
blowing directly toward our quarry. For the 
wind might not only figure as a factor in scent 
carrying, but in sound carrying as well. The 
piercing cold wind at the summit of this ridge 
seemed to transform our sweaty shirts into icy 
incrustations. It certainly did crystallize the 
drops of moisture that fell from our chins, noses 
and eyebrows into temporary jewel drops. 

112 



ON THE SHEEP RANGES 

When we looked over the top of this ridge our 
game was gone. Evidently the sound of the 
sliding rocks had betrayed us. We considered 
it a hard streak of luck, after the long stalk and 
the hard, wearisome climb, which consumed 
hours of time. 

We therefore began a further ascent in an at- 
tempt to come out above the sheep first seen by 
us. But while rounding the mountain under the 
rim that crowned its summit we glanced down 
the ridge and saw a ram standing on a point of 
rocks about a quarter mile away and 500 feet 
drop below us. What should we do? Go after 
this ram or the bunch we were stalking when we 
saw it? Cap was in favor of the former plan — I 
the latter — but I gave in, so we sneaked, slid and 
fell down toward the ram — for it was rough going 
— keeping, of course, out of sight on the opposite 
side of the ridge. 

When we reached the rugged projection on 
which we had seen the ram. Cap looked over, then 
drew back hurriedly with the excited remark 
that he was lying almost directly below us, 40 
yards away. Breathless, for fear he might be up 
and away, I bent over just in time to see him rise 
from his bed. While he was standing I fired, be- 
ing fearful of hitting the rocky projections inter- 
vening. As soon as I pulled the trigger I knew I 
had overshot. He bounded away in a mad rush 
amidst the bombardment of both Cap and my- 
self, and altho I fired four more shots at him 

113 



IN THE ALASKA- YUKON GAMELANDS 

and SIX pellets were sent from Cap's gun, 
all on the run, he was soon safe behind the 
rim below us. 

I was of course all broken up at my absolute 
carelessness. Cap felt it, too, very keenly. It 
proved the correctness of the old shooting adage 
— ^never be too sure nor too quick in shooting at 
game. We both ran to the hump below, around 
which he disappeared, but the mountain scenery 
and a blue sky was all we had punctured. Later 
we saw him slowly picking his way up a ridge a 
mile to the south of us. His route would cross 
our proposed path to the horses about a half 
mile ahead, so, with the sole consolation that we 
might meet him while returning, we allowed our- 
selves to get swallowed in the gulches out of sight 
of him. Flowever, he must have seen us and 
dropped back into the timber, as subsequent 
events proved. After an hour's hard climbing 
and down-sliding, too, we reached the horses at 
5 o'clock at the edge of timber, and were soon 
travehng camp-ward. It felt good to sit in the 
saddle again after so much hard climbing and 
scouting. We were both on the lookout for our 
ram while descending thru the timber. We 
hadn't traveled a quarter of a mile before Cap, 
who was leading, gave a motion of silence, and 
we slid off our horses. With the glasses I saw the 
ram in the small timber. He was huddled under 
a spruce that stood amidst the young balm of 
gilead trees. Were it snowing, or raining, one 

114 



ON THE SHEEP RANGES 

would imagine, by his position, that he had been 
driven there by the storm. 

Cap had told me before of the habits of rams 
in sometimes hiding like this, but before me thru 
the glasses, as I peered between the heavy foli- 
age ahead, I saw the most perfect example of the 
hunted ram driven in fear to his hiding place. 

We planned that I should climb the hill back 
of him by a roundabout course (he was 500 yards 
away) and come down on him from behind and 
above. Cap was to lie in ambush where we then 
were, and we figured it out that if I frightened 
him I would run him toward Cap. After an 
hour's climbing and stalking I had circled back 
of him, and to my disgust I found that it was 
impossible to approach closer without making 
some noise in the loose sliderock; also that he 
was down-wind from me. While coming down 
upon his position from the rear I heard Cap's 
rifle crack three times, and when I heard his 
shout I knew the ram was down. 

Cap had gone to sleep during my long stalk, 
and was suddenly awakened by the noise of the 
fleeing ram thru the brush as it passed within 
fifteen feet of him. Grabbing his rifle, he placed 
two shots out of three in the animal at about 100 
yards while it was traveling from him. When 
he reached the ram he found it down, the .250 
having smashed one hip and one shoulder ter- 
ribly. ^ Yet that seemingly invincible ram sat 
with his head up and eyes animated, apparently 

115 



IN THE ALASKA- YUKON GAMELANDS 

very full of life, until Cap cut his throat, not wish- 
ing to bullet-mangle him any more. He was 
about a five-year-old — with hardly a full curve of 
horn — therefore a smaller ram than we took him 
to be when first seen and fired upon. By 8 
o'clock we had him measured and skinned and 
meat and all packed on the horses. We arrived 
at camp at 1 1 145, preceding the balance of the 
party to camp by half an hour. Jimmy arose 
from sleep and gave us hot soup and a fine supper 
of sheep meat, potatoes and other good things. 

When the other four hunters came in at 12:15 
a. m. they were given a hearty reception, espe- 
cially after they unbosomed the pleasing infor- 
mation that they had separated the spirits of 
six perfectly healthy sheep from their earthly 
coils. Needless to say, they were, like us, hun- 
gry, cold and tired, but there wasn't anything 
the matter with them that a hot supper couldn't 
cure. 

After separating from Cap and me in the 
morning they traveled to the farthest end of the 
mountain (some five miles beyond the point 
reached by us). At 10 o'clock they tied their 
horses at timberline and all climbed together to 
the summit, where it seems they had seen a bunch 
of sheep while riding up. It took them until 
4:30 p. m. to stalk their game and get close 
enough to shoot. While climbing the mountain 
they passed within 300 yards of two splendid 
rams, but they were playing for bigger stakes, as 

116 



ON THE SHEEP RANGES 

there were 170 sheep in one flock ahead and some 
forty in another — so they passed up the rams. 

While in the vicinity of the large flock Harry 
and Longley stopped at a rock to wait until 
William and Wooden should get to their position 
close to the small bunch, before attempting to 
fire. When William and his guide reached a good 
position they were rewarded with standing shots 
at 100 yards, after cork-screwing, crawling and 
worming their way over some very rough and 
dangerous places. William opened up first, 
bringing down a big ewe, and wounding a lamb 
which Wooden finished. Then Wooden fired, 
killing a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old and bringing 
down an ewe with an assisting shot from William. 
This gave William and Billy five sheep. 

Harry by this time was getting anxious about 
his bunch. Soon he heard sounds like the bark- 
ing of dogs emanating from the direction of his 
son and Wooden. These boys were sure barking, 
their object being to scare the sheep toward 
Harry and Longley, who were hidden behind a 
rock waiting for the opportune time to open fire. 
This camouflage succeeded admirably, for the 
flock was sent close enough to the hunters so 
that Harry was able to open up on them at 100 
yards. He brought down an ewe in splendid 
style, which gave them all a total of six sheep 
for their day*s work, which with Cap's ram made 
a grand total of seven — by far the best record of 
any day's work on the whole trip. 

117 



Sixth Chapter 



SHEEP, MOOSE AND CARIBOU 



THE LAW OF THE YUKON 

This Is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain : 

*' Send not your foolish and feeble ; send me your strong and your 

sane — 
Strong for the red rage of battle ; sane, for I harry them sore ; 
Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core ; 
Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat, 
Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat. 
Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones ; 
Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons ; 
Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat ; 
But the others — the misfits, the failures — I trample under my feet." 

— Robert Service. 



SIXTH CHAPTER 
SHEEP, MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

TX/E should hardly have been human if 
^^ we were not tired the next morning — in 
fact, we arose about how and when we 
pleased. This long-distance hunting was begin- 
ning to "get*' us, for where the James branch of 
our party hunted yesterday it was eleven miles 
from camp. That was much too far to travel 
and hunt, especially as it necessitated returning 
to camp at midnight, besides another trip next 
day by the packers for the hides, bones and meat. 
This could have been avoided to a great extent 
by side packs from main camp into closer prox- 
imity to the game — a plan that both Harry and I 
adopted when we hunted in this section on our 
return trip. 

Longley, Rogers, Wooden and Shorty left 
camp at 9 o'clock to get the skins and meat of 
five of the sheep killed the day previous (Harry's 
sheep hide and meat having been taken in with 
the hunting party). These boys also hoped to 
get a ram or two from among those that had 
been seen the day before. At 7 p. m. Longley 
and Rogers returned to camp, reporting that 

121 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

they had left Wooden's and Shorty's horses at 
an agreed-upon spot, owing to the inabiHty of 
the latter men to come off the mountain with 
their companions. 

All those of us who were not engaged in hunt- 
ing or going after the meat and hides loafed 
about camp that day, cleaning up, shaving, writ- 
ing, oiling guns, etc. It was a disagreeable day, 
even with us in a comfortable camp, and the non- 
appearance of the two men worried us. 

It started to drizzle and snow about 2 p. m. 
and was raining when Rogers and Longley came 
in. It rained nearly all that night in camp. At 
1 1 -.30 p. m. Wooden rode into camp and reported 
that he and Shorty had wounded a ram, and 
that they followed it a couple of miles thru the 
cliffs, but without success in finding it. When it 
came time to leave for camp they had to go back 
and up about two miles to where their horses 
had been left by Rogers and Longley, so Shorty 
suggested that he take a short-cut down to the 
trail and that Wooden go after the horses and 
pick him up on the way in. So they separated. 
It was 7 o'clock when Wooden got to the horses. 
When ne reached a point on his course where 
he thought Shorty ought to be he hallooed, fired 
his rifle and then waited. Then he repeated the 
same act again and again, waiting a reasonable 
time after each signal for a response. Receiving 
none, and believing that Shorty had walked 



122 



SHEEP, MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

ahead in the hope of being caught up with, 
Wooden rode into camp. 

I awoke in the night with a start after having 
heard the challenge of a bull moose. After 
awaking I still continued to hear the same 
**Waug-g-h/' and was about to jump up and 
get my gun when the author of the noise must 
have turned over on his side — for it was Harry- 
snoring. Next the mournful cry of Shorty's dog, 
Jimmie, broke the stillness. Who would have 
thought that this hardened malamute, who 
braved the rush of the stream and the rigors of 
the winter cold without a murmur, would feel 
the heart-pangs of loneliness at the loss of his 
master for one night? But that old wolf-dog 
sobbed out his soul-grief in the most piercing, 
mournful doles, telling plainer than human 
words of his sorrowful affliction. I arose and 
partly dressed, thinking that I might comfort 
him and at the same time stop the noise that 
sooner or later would awaken everyone in camp. 
He was sitting on his haunches under a tree by 
the saddle-stack as I emerged from my tent, but 
when he saw me he came swiftly to my side, 
tail a-wagging. Never had I seen him so affec- 
tionate. When I rubbed his coarse-furred head 
and offered sympathy, he cried again and poured 
out his grief in those same piteous tones I had 
heard before, as if his heart would break. 

While stooping over him I thought I caught a 



123 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

flash to my right, and, looking up, was surprised 
to see a very fair demonstration of the Northern 
Lights. Apparently it had continued to rain 
during the night up to a short time previous to 
my arising, as everything in camp was freshly 
wet. But now the rain had ceased and it was 
quite cold for an August night. (When morning 
broke and the hills were covered with snow, and 
a slow drizzle was in evidence at camp, I realized 
that the cessation from rain during the night had 
probably been of but short duration.) 

While the extravagant color effect described 
so lavishly by some writers was lacking, yet the 
form of the lights was clearly visible. They took 
the shape of wide, filmy ribbons stretched from 
nearly overhead and radiating downward. The 
center of the illumination was the north and 
about midway between the north star and the 
horizon. In tangent form it spread downward 
like a great fan to the northeast and the north- 
west, intermittently changing — disappearing and 
reappearing — but all in such delicate shades as 
to be only faintly outlined. There wasn't to be 
seen a rainbow tint in the whole effect, the colors 
being of the grayish or misty order. It was the 
only demonstration of these lights that I was 
able to witness on the whole trip, they showing 
more frequently and more brilliantly at other 
seasons of the year, I am told. 

When morning came and there was no Shorty 
in camp, all but the sourdoughs felt keen appre- 

124 



SHEEP, MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

hension for his safety. Visions of a crippled 
Alaskan lying out under a tree in the cold and 
snow began to appear before us. **The old rat/* 
muttered Cap in a jocular vein. **You couldn't 
hurt that old gopher! He curled himself under 
a tree last night and is only waiting this morning 
for the sun to dry the bushes. Then he^ll come 
out of his hole like a prairie-dog and amble into 
camp.'* 

But Cap's words didn't console us, and we 
insisted on his sending someone out to hunt for 
Shorty. Such a thing as a broken leg or arm or 
other injury in the hills is too common, we 
thought, to allow us to forget him. Longley and 
Wooden were sent out across the White and over 
the boggy tundras where Shorty and Wooden 
hunted the previous day, but in a couple of 
hours they returned, soaked to the skin, with 
the report that he couldn't be found. The moun- 
tains were white with snow, as well as the trees 
near timberline, and without chaps one was sure 
to get soaked from the wet and snow-covered 
bushes and trees. 

At lo o'clock Longley and Wooden were again 
asked to go look for Shorty, so they departed. 
At 11:30 we saw the three crossing the White a 
mile or two away, and our relief was inexpres- 
sible. When he came in. Shorty explained that, 
having missed Billy Wooden the evening before, 
he preferred to si wash it under a tree for the 
night rather than wade thru the wet underbrush 

125 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

in the rain and snow and then wade the White 
River to camp. 

As the morning was now spent, we could take 
no long hunting trip this day, so Cap and I took 
a six-mile horseback jaunt down the river looking 
for bears, but without result of any kind. In 
fifteen minutes we picked enough blueberries to 
make a nice pie. 

Harry and Brownie went up the Kletsan for 
moose and caribou, but saw nothing in the big 
game line. 

Jimmie^s ^^break-fawst!" sounded next morn- 
ing at 5 o'clock, as we decided before leaving for 
other camps that we would give the sheep 
another round. So at 6:io a. m. the regular 
cavalcade which had been crossing the White 
River so frequently during the past week was 
again seen to worm its way around the quick- 
sand beds of this stream and then climb the 200- 
foot bank on the opposite side, headed for Fig- 
gins Mountain. In the mixed procession this 
morning were Harry (accompanied by Longley 
and Brownie), William, who was sponsored by 
Wooden, and myself, chaperoned by Cap. We 
journeyed to the farthest end of the mountain — 
near where the James's had made their killing 
three days previously — with the exception of 
William and Wooden, who dropped out of the 
parade about halfway along the mountain in the 
hope of intercepting the ram that Wooden and 
Shorty wounded two days before. 

126 



SHEEP, MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

We tied our horses a little above timberline 
and separated, Harry and his guides going to the 
left up the mountain, and Cap and I diverging 
from the route of our companions and going up 
the hill to the right. We all met at the boundary 
monument on the summit, Harry reporting that 
he had seen a sheep in the basin while ascending. 
It later moved out of sight and, as he didn't con- 
sider the country inhabited by it as worth hunt- 
ing, he and his guides continued to the summit. 
We saw no sheep while climbing up. From the 
top we all saw a band of about thirty to the 
northeast, but too far away to go after. Other 
bunches of from five to seven were also seen in 
the same direction, all below us and far away. 
Harry was discouraged, and, with Brownie and 
Longley, departed for the horses, while Cap and 
1 decided we would like to hunt out the country 
they had just covered, as well as some farther 
ridges contiguous to it, in the hope that we might 
run across the sheep that they had seen. So we 
separated. Before we had gone 200 yards, how- 
ever, we saw from the summit three sheep about 
a mile away, close to the point where our com- 
panions had seen the single sheep while ascend- 
ing. These sheep were far below us, so we went 
for them. In about half an hour we had de- 
scended the mountain and crawled up to the top 
of the ridge which lay alongside the one on which 
they were feeding, the gulch between us. Cap 
thought they weren't over 200 yards away, but 

127 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

this here tenderfoot would have bet his Water- 
bury that they were 400, and so informed Cap 
midst a volley of warm adjectives from him that 
were intended to tell me exactly where I stood as 
a poor judge of Alaska distances. 

Cap insisted that we couldn^t possibly get any 
closer, while I contended just as strongly that 
we could. A week or two later, while climbing 
up the same ridge that these sheep were on — on 
the last hunt of the trip — I proved to Cap that 
we could have stalked them from the gulch and 
got much closer than we did on this occasion. 

After I had lost out as a distance guesser, I 
argued against shooting at such a small target 
as a lamb (they proved to be a ewe and two 
lambs, but we needed no more ewes) at that dis- 
tance. Cap was worked up to a little heat over 
my slowness to shoot, so I decided to try. I 
fired at one of the lambs, but as the ground was 
damp I couldn't tell where I was hitting, except 
that I missed the game. Immediately the 
mother and lambs began to climb to higher 
ground on the ridge. We each fired some ten or 
more shots at the fleeing youngsters when we 
discovered that both of them had been hit. One 
laid down and the other was tottering. Cap 
said, "Don't shoot any more.'* Soon the other 
laid down also, and the mother looked down on 
them with concern from the ridge above. We 
felt sure of our lambs, and were much pleased, 
as they were just what we needed to fill in on 

128 



SHEEP, MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

our sheep groups. But soon one arose and went 
away with apparently a broken leg. Then the 
other staggered to its feet and walked on. The 
mother went ahead, urging them with all her 
motherly devotion to follow. But the sick lamb 
held back. The one with the broken leg (we sur- 
mised it was broken from its actions) crossed the 
gulch and climbed in its poor way the steep hill- 
side to the left. During all this time we followed 
as fast as our pumping lungs and thumping 
hearts would permit, some 500 or 600 yards to 
their rear. (While crossing the gulch after them 
Cap remarked that I was wrong when I guessed 
the distance at which we began shooting to be 
400 yards, saying it was at least 500.) Before 
we could climb within range of the crippled 
lamb both it and its mother had gone over the 
summit a half-mile away. 

Then we began searching for the sick lamb. 
I climbed the rocky hill opposite in order to get 
a better survey of the field where the youngster 
was last seen, using the glasses carefully. Cap 
remained on the other side and looked over the 
ground carefully, finally hunting out of my sight 
behind the ridge. Then I heard the report of his 
rifle and concluded he had fetched up with the 
lamb. However, I divined differently when I 
saw four sheep — two rams, a ewe and a lamb, 
the latter our sick lamb suddenly come to life — 
climbing the ridge above him. Then I knew he 
was shooting at one of their number, especially 

129 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

as I heard other shots later. After moving a little 
to my right I located Cap and the object of his 
fire, a ram, in the gulch a half-mile away. I 
hurriedly went to him and found he had a nice 
5-year-old ram down. In body it was a beau- 
tiful, large animal — the largest we killed on the 
trip — but his horns weren't long enough to form 
quite a complete turn. I estimated his weight 
at 300 pounds, my comparison being made with 
an ovis canadensis killed by me in Wyoming 
once that weighed under the scales 325 pounds. 
It was 4 o'clock when I reached Cap and his 
ram. We were nine miles from camp, and as we 
were to move on the morrow it was necessary 
that we carry meat and all in. We measured it 
and skinned it out, taking the good meat, there 
being not much owing to the manner in which 
Cap had pulverized it with his .250. It seems 
after first wounding it the animal stood, very 
sick, instead of attempting to lie down — a quite 
common thing for a goat or a sheep to do, con- 
trary to the members of the deer family, who 
will lie down more readily. Cap was a little dis- 
appointed over the size of the animal's horns, 
but was good enough to immediately then and 
there offer to the museum a beautiful set of ovis 
dalli horns that he had at home and which he 
had planned on using some day for himself when 
he should find a cape to suit them. These horns, 
being larger than any we secured on the trip, 
were greatly appreciated, and I thanked Cap 

130 



SHEEP, MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

with all my heart for his generous present. 
These horns now adorn that identical hide in 
our museum, and I do not hesitate to say that 
in the completed state it is the largest and most 
beautiful ovis dalli ram I have ever seen, either 
in plaster or flesh. 

We were a mile and a half from the horses, 
but by carefully distributing the load of meat, 
horns, hides, guns, cameras and glasses, we only 
had to rest under it two or three times on the 
way to our most welcome cayuses. It was a 
boggy, marshy, bad ride to camp, but Cap 
whisked us down so that we made it at 9:55 
p. m. — the last hour in the dark thru the timber. 

Next morning — August 28th — we packed up 
and at II o^clock left our Kletsan camp, where 
for seven days we had hunted moose and caribou 
without success and white sheep with very good 
results. We journeyed up the Kletsan about 
two miles, then entered the timber to the east- 
ward and crossed the Yukon boundary, reaching 
our camp on the Generc, ten miles above its 
junction with the White, about 7 o'clock. Our 
camp was made in a pretty timbered spot a 
quarter of a mile from the Generc and across it, 
by the side of a small, clear stream, with the 
St. Clair about half a mile east of us. Distance 
traveled for the day, eighteen miles. 

While traveling up the Kletsan this morning 
from our sheep camp we noticed along the edge 
of the forest where it borders the river bar a 

131 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

fence constructed of spruce saplings tied to the 
trees of the forest with bark and willow thongs. 
We were told that this fence — probably four or 
five feet high, of two or three stringers — was 
built by the Indians and used by them and others 
to corral the caribou on their migrating trips, 
then to slaughter them for their meat and hides. 
How true this is we had no absolute means of 
knowing, but of one thing we felt certain — the 
fence was built by Indians, as it bore all the ear- 
marks of their work. It was old and broken 
down in many places, probably having been 
built twenty years or more ago. 

During the Klondike rush the market hunting 
of caribou around Dawson was carried on very 
extensively. As many as sixty-four horses, 
some twenty-odd years ago, each drawing a set 
of three double-ender sleighs, each sleigh loaded 
with four caribou, have been seen on the water- 
shed between the Yukon and McKenzie rivers 
(headwaters of Klondike river), carrying the 
carcasses to Dawson. This would make 768 
caribou to a train. These caribou were sold to 
miners and prospectors on the creeks around 
Dawson, and in Dawson, at 20 to 35 cents a 
pound. The tongues were preserved and sent 
out of the country. Beef sold then for $1.25 a 
pound. 

About September each year the annual migra- 
tion of caribou occurs. At that time they leave 
their summer home in the tundra-covered 

132 



SHEEP, MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

ground, between the mouth of the McKenzIe 
and Pt. Barrow, and drift south. The first 
snows drift in there so deep that they can't paw 
it from the tundra and muskeg, and they drift 
to the better feeding grounds below. So down 
they come in hundreds of thousands, passing in 
their southern flight the head of Peel River, 
head of Stewart River, head of Klondike, Pelly 
and McMillan, as far south as Lake Atlin. This 
drive usually follows the same route, covering 
in the migration a space about twenty miles 
wide. There are other bands of caribou inhabit- 
ing the northwest part of Alaska (say, north of 
the Kyukuk range) that migrate similarly to the 
mainland just mentioned, and that cross the 
Yukon River at different points, and that have 
been seen by the thousands traveling thru Circle 
City, Fairbanks and Fortymile. They go south 
of Fairbanks and begin to return, as do the big 
band, about April or May. They calve in June, 
right in the tundra. They don't always return 
by the same route, but generally so, and go in a 
slow, straggling, unorganized manner as com- 
pared to that which characterizes their southern 
journey, when they go fast, each bunch appar- 
ently trying to get ahead of the other. The 
Hudson Bay Company used to ship before the 
Klondike rush from i,8oo to 2,000 barrels of 
**deer tongue'* (caribou) annually to Great 
Slave, Lesser Slave Lake, etc., from there to 
be shipped to Canada and England. 

^33 



IN THE ALASKA- YUKON GAMELANDS 

While all these things are sad to reflect upon at 
the present time, twenty years later, yet in 
twenty years from now we will feel just as much 
ashamed of what is occurring in Alaska and 
other places now as we now are at what happened 
then. While much has been said of the Indians* 
good habits of conserving game by eating every 
ounce of meat killed, etc., yet after what I 
learned of his ways while in the North I am com- 
pelled to believe that his conservation is not so 
much a matter of habit as of necessity. When 
his larder is low and his stomach empty, it is 
surprising what he will eat — the scraps, entrails, 
fat and every portion of the animal. But let 
"Poor Lo" get a chance to kill a band of caribou, 
sheep or moose, when the hides and horns are of 
commercial value, and he forgets when it is time 
to quit shooting, often completely obliterating a 
herd before he is thru. That is when his great 
waste of meat is shown, as, naturally, most of it 
is left to rot. 

The morning following our arrival on the 
Generc, Harry and Brownie left at 8 o'clock, go- 
ing up the little stream at our door, with the 
announcement that they would bring in a bull 
moose. Cap and I went over to the St. Clair, 
followed it up several miles, and returned by the 
stream up which Harry had gone in the morning. 
Some bear tracks and a porcupine were about 
all of any general interest that anyone saw. We 
had some amusement with the porcupine. We 

134 



SHEEP, MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

stood stark still when we first saw it twenty-five 
feet away. It started to whine; we imitated the 
noise and it turned and came up to within four 
feet of us, sitting up on its haunches like a dog. 
I took several pictures of it at four and five feet. 

William, Billy and Rogers went out for moose 
in the afternoon. The biggest game they saw 
was a porcupine. 

This camp and the small indication of sign 
about it was a great disappointment to us, as we 
had confidently expected to find moose and bear 
here. Therefore, it didn't take us long to decide 
to move. The Young party, the year before, 
had been very successful on moose and caribou 
in this vicinity, and, as we had seen several 
moose while riding into this camp on the evening 
of our arrival, everything at first augured well 
for a successful hunt in that vicinity. 

At 1 1 o'clock the next morning, after packing 
up, we silently and sadly stole away, entertaining 
some hope that game would be found on Harris 
Creek, a tributary of the Generc, flowing into it 
a couple of miles or so below our camp. The 
weather was now beautiful, being sunny and 
warm, and the scenery sublime. 

R. B. Slaughter, of no West Monroe street, 
Chicago, in 19 12, on Harris Creek, killed a car- 
ibou head the beam of which measured 65 
inches, having sixty-four points. He also secured 
an ovis dalli on Mt. Natazhat with a 15^-inch 
base and 44>^-inch curl. 

^35 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

We journeyed twelve miles up Harris Creek 
thru the greatest moose country that I have 
ever seen, to be untenanted. Where had they 
gone? Shorty surmised possibly they were down 
on the Snag, some forty miles below. Others 
believed they were yet too high to hunt success- 
fully, and that when they came down we would 
get them. Many conjectures were offered as to 
the possible whereabouts of the herds and the 
cause of their disappearance, but none of the 
advice seemed to do us any good. We were a 
week earlier than the Young party the year be- 
fore, and that was offered as a possible excuse. 
Yet, in corresponding with our guide before the 
trip he had urgently requested us to come a week 
before we did, so if we were now too early, the 
question arose, how on earth would we have 
fared should we have gone still a week sooner? 
It was away ahead of the rutting season, and 
that naturally militated some against us, but 
what should we care about rutting seasons in 
Alaska, we thought before leaving, where moose 
are so plentiful? We had simply run against a 
streak of hard luck, and at the time we felt that 
there was nothing to do but to make the best of 
it. Certainly we were willing hunters, for there 
wasn't a drone in our own party nor in the party 
of our outfitters. The horse wranglers, headed 
by Billy Longley, were up every morning at 4 
o'clock to go for the horses; Jimmie, the cook, 
usually rose about 4:30, while our own party 

136 



SHEEP, MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

were astir about 5:30 on the average. As we 
were out hunting late of nights very often, it 
may be seen that we at least '*done time'* while 
on the trip. 

What surprised me most was the almost total 
absence of fresh bear sign (there was plenty of 
old). The bears apparently were not wild — to 
see us — and, on the other hand, we were getting 
so wild and wary of bear toward the end of the 
trip that I believe we would have run from a cub. 
Which reminds me of a fake foot racer of Wyo- 
ming who later turned bear hunter. He had 
thrown many running matches, as it seemed the 
only way he could make a success of the gam^e; 
so one day while hunting Bruin with a friend a 
bear took after him, running him pretty close to 
his friend, who was a surgeon. As he went by 
in the hottest race he had ever run the doctor 
called from a protecting tree-limb: **For Gawd's 
sake, run, Tom, run!'* *'You d d fool," re- 
sponded Tom, between gasps, "yo^ don't think 
Vm going to throw this race, do you?" 

After traveling to a camp-site on Harris Creek 
and seeing no sign of moose, Harry suggested 
that instead of camping immediately and going 
up to Tepee Lake, three miles, in the morning, 
that we leave the outfit here while Cap, he and I 
should go to Tepee Lake now, and if we found no 
sign we would camp farther below and do our 
hunting in that section on the morrow. So this 
plan was agreed to. When we reached the lake 

137 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

we were almost dumbfounded to find no sign 
around its boggy, lily-padded shore, where moose 
certainly would visit if they were in the country. 
So, with heavy hearts, we retraced our steps 
back to the packs, and, leading them down a 
mile or two farther, camped in an open spot fifty 
yards from the timber, on one of the forks of 
Harris Creek. 

From correspondence had with Mr. Young, 
with Dr. Griffith and others, I had been led to 
believe that the barren ground above Harris 
Creek to the east was a great caribou range a 
week or two later in the season. Hoping that 
we might not be too early, Harry and Jimmy 
Brown decided to hunt that country the follow- 
ing day, while Billy Wooden and I took the same 
kind of country, barren and boggy, on the other 
side of Harris Creek. William and Rogers 
hunted for sheep farther up Harris Creek, as 
Harry, Cap and I had seen some on the moun- 
tain to the left of Tepee Lake the evening before. 
On my trip with Wooden we saw nothing but 
some caribou and moose tracks a couple of days 
old. We picked up an old set of caribou horns 
for the group, and, returning at 4 p. m., we went 
greyling fishing with Cap, getting twenty aver- 
aging a pound in an hour or two with snell hooks 
baited with meat, using willow poles. 

Rogers and William came in before supper 
with the information that "the sheep had seen 
them first,'* therefore, they went moose hunting 

138 



SHEEP, MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

— a sure proof, they said, that they didn't get 
game. 

Harry came in with Brownie about 5 o'clock 
carrying a 4-year-old bull caribou in the velvet. 
When they came upon it (which was accom- 
plished, Harry said, thru some very clever stalk- 
ing by his guide) they thought it was a cow out 
of the velvet, so Harry opened on it at seventy- 
five yards. He downed it with a shot in the 
paunch that ranged diagonally forward and 
broke the shoulder — a very pretty shot. Brownie 
said. Later he ^was able to crawl to within 
fifteen feet of a sleeping caribou bull, larger than 
the first, but he allowed it to go, as it was not 
his intention to kill any more in the velvet. He 
would, of course, not have killed the first one 
had he known the horns were soft. (This de- 
cision on his part, to kill no more in the velvet, 
was reversed later when he was told by Rogers 
that there was a possibility that the velvet horns 
might be preserved and that such a group 
would be a curiosity in a museum. Now, how- 
ever, we learn, after consulting Mr. Figgins — a 
fact which most of us felt certain of at the time — 
that as velvet specimens these horns are a 
failure. 



139 



Seventh Qhapter 



MOOSE AND CARIBOU 



SEVENTH CHAPTER 
MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

/^N Sunday, September i, which was the day 
^^ following our hunting on the barrens above 
Harris Creek, when Harry James killed his bull 
caribou, we folded our tents and quietly slipped 
away, following down Harris Creek and camp- 
ing on the west bank of the Generc. There was a 
certain sadness in our act, for it meant the turn- 
ing homeward on what was so far an unsuccess- 
ful trip. And yet the country was so beautiful, 
the sun so splendid and the air so perfect that 
none but a confirmed pessimist could help ap- 
preciating it. I don't believe I ever enjoyed a 
horseback ride more than that one on Sunday, 
September i, 191 8. There seemed to be just 
enough woodland, the right contour of mountain, 
the perfect touch of vista, the proper swing to the 
stream below, the right trail undulation — for 
this was a real trail, albeit a crude one — and the 
perfect temperature and light to cause exhilara- 
tion of spirit, and, as the poet hath said, "a pure 
serenity of mind." I felt a desire to drink in the 
atmosphere and scenery in big gulps. Removing 
the Stetson, and with one leg over the withers 

143 



IN THE ALASKA- YUKON GAMELANDS 

in a restful position, I allowed everything to 
soak in that would. 

It was good to have the fresh Alaska air filter 
through the thinning locks that bedecked the 
upper appendage; and it didn't seem bad, either, 
to feel the morning glints from Old Sol smacking 
the ivory-colored arid spots on the editorial 
dome. It was a time for rumination and rhap- 
sodizing — every condition conducing to a peace- 
ful lethargy never found along the business trail. 
And besides, it was Sunday. 

The following day, Harry, Brownie, Cap and I 
went up the trail three miles west of camp on 
foot, moose hungry and determined. Later we 
separated into pairs and hunted a fairly large 
area, but drew only a blank. Harry and Cap 
saw a moose, but he was able to leave with a 
whole hide, no one even getting a shot at him 
(or her) — we couldn't see the animal clear enough 
to determine the sex. I learned while hunting 
big game, as has many another sportsman, that 
if you can't see the horns on a bull at a distance 
of three hundred or four hundred yards, she has 
none. Note. — My diary of this day reads: 
Sept. 2, 191 8, sun arose at 6:15 — daylight, 4:15. 
Sundown at 7:30 — this of course by the day- 
light-saving time. 

Cap and I took our horses next morning and 
started over the same train traveled the day be- 
fore, only we went much farther, clear up above 
timberline on the caribou barrens — where we 

144 




w-^.- 




Upper picture — The author and 45-inch moose. 

Middle — Grayling fishing on Harris Creek, Y. T. 

Lower — A fly came in handy to sleep under at Skolai Pass. 



MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

divided, he taking one route back to camp and 
I another. As we separated at lo o'clock it 
gave each of us time for a nice long hunt alone. 
The balance of the party, dividing, hunted the 
timbered reaches next the Generc, both above 
and below camp. 

While the horses were a great help in carrying 
us up the steep trail, we now would be better off 
without them, as far as hunting was concerned. 
After leaving Cap I bore downward toward the 
timber, crossed a canon, and as I reached the 
forested area began to hunt. My method was 
to tie the horse and make a circuit out from and 
back to the animal, the horse being on the line of 
the circle, not in the middle of it. Due care was 
taken that I didn't hunt down-wind from the 
horse, of course. This circle was about half a 
mile across. While leading my horse to a tying 
tree for the third circle hunt, I came out upon a 
bluff overlooking a stream, while across this riv- 
ulet and three-quarters of a mile to the north 
lay a timber-encircled lake. When I first glanced 
at this body of water, a third of a mile long by a 
quarter wide (with the naked eye), I didn't see 
anything the matter with it. However, a second 
survey of it disclosed what my clouded vision 
took to be a horse standing in the water twenty- 
five feet from the opposite shore. There was 
certainly something there that didn't belong. 
The next instant two bright-colored blades helio- 
graphed to me the information that he was a bull 

H5 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

moose disporting himself in perfect ease and ab- 
solute security at his summer and fall watering 
place. Using the glasses, I saw it was a bull 
moose, all right, apparently with a very fair set 
of perfectly clean antlers. The white palms 
glistened in the sunlight, giving them the ap- 
pearance of being much larger than they were. 
Standing knee-deep in the lake, between drinks, 
he took long, leisurely glances around in the 
different directions looking for any sign of danger 
that might be manifest. Soon a smaller bull, in 
the velvet, joined him, wading out into the 
water about as far as his companion. In a few 
minutes both slowly retreated into the forest. 
I ran for my horse and pulled him down hill 
to the stream. Crossing it, I led him toward the 
lake into the timber and tied him. Then I ad- 
vanced to the near side of the lake and from 
behind a tree looked across with the glasses. I 
peered into every opening among the trees, and 
scrutinized studiously every little formation or 
combination that looked like the head, horn, ear 
or body of a moose. I almost gave up when I 
saw something resembling an ear move. I kept 
the glasses on it for minutes without further 
result, all the while trying to build horns and 
heads out of everything within a fair radius of 
the object. It was back about twenty-five feet 
from the edge of the timber, and as I stood about 
four hundred yards away, it can be seen that I 
had some contract on hand to look after an ob- 

146 



MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

ject as small as a moose's car at that distance 
and in that shadow-streaked timber. I waited 
for what seemed an hour, but which was per- 
haps only a few more minutes, for a repetition of 
the same motion. Finally I was rewarded, for 
that ear flapped again as naturally as any good 
healthy moose's ear should. Then I detected 
the hulk of his body lying behind a couple of 
trees, as well as an outline of one of his horns. 
He was in the shade, and hard to see. The flies 
bothered him a little, but not so much as to 
cause him to shake his head, but only the ear. 
Owing to the very poor target he made from 
here and the good chance there seemed of stalk- 
ing him from the other side, I decided not to risk 
a shot now, but to circle around and come down 
on him from the opposite side of the lake. While 
the side on which I stood was flat ground, the 
other side was quite a hill. After marking care- 
fully the spot occupied by my quarry I retreated 
back to the horse and led him in a semi-circle 
around the lower end of the lake, up on the side 
of the ridge back of the lake and tied him about 
a quarter mile from the moose. Everything was 
favorable for a successful stalk, wind, weather 
and sun, and I decided then and there that if 
that old ruminant got away he would be a 
charmed animal. I tried not to overlook any- 
thing that would contribute to my success. It 
was 11:30 when I sighted him, so I had all the 
time I needed for a slow, careful stalk. The 

147 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

weather was actually balmy and sun shining 
brightly. 

I had gone but a short distance from my horse 
when I became disgusted at the rasping sound 
made by walking on the dry moss, so removing 
my boots and laying them on a stump, I con- 
tinued in my stocking feet. When damp this 
moss is an advantage in stalking game, but 
when dry it gives forth a crunching sound like 
that of walking on frozen snow. 

I thought, owing to the landmark taken on 
his position from the other side, that I would be 
able to pretty accurately judge the location of 
his bed. I had by this time come to the rim of 
the hill leading down to the lake, a distance of 
two hundred or three hundred yards away. I 
crept and walked down thru the timber, keeping 
behind the greatest patches of trees and in the 
swales, stopping every few feet to look more 
carefully than I could do while moving. I was 
so quiet in my advance that the creaking of the 
leather strap on my camera carrying case 
sounded to me Hke the hiss of a German bomb. 
When I had approached to within about one 
hundred twenty-five yards of the lake, and just 
at about the time that I expected something 
very sensational to happen, a squirrel saw me and 
began a terrific tirade of abuse. I once had a 
squirrel open up on me in exactly the same man- 
ner while stalking a grizzly in Wyoming, and 
while that very act, I believe, in that instance 

148 



MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

was the cause of that particular bear's demise, 
yet I was not so sure that it would work the 
same way on moose. A second after the squir- 
rel's call was sounded a very natural bush, one 
hundred twenty-five yards in front, turned sud- 
denly into a very animated set of moose antlers 
that moved nervously, and the first act was on. 
The particular spot where the body lay was con- 
cealed by the foliage, but soon the antlers arose 
to full height and moved out of sight to the left. 
I ran like an Indian for twenty-five feet to my 
left, as the foliage was too dense to see him from 
my first position. I stopped as a likely opening 
appeared in the timber, bent to a knee rest and 
was gratified to see my moose, also walking to 
the left. I had the sight on his shoulder in a 
flash, but that little 25-foot run had got my 
breath, and besides I was a little nervous, too. 
This made the sight waver, so I pulled myself 
together and said, "Old boy, you can't afford 
to miss this moose after traveling so far to get 
him." I am a great believer, like the doctor, in 
the efficacy of that first pill, for I would rather 
have one good standing shot at an animal than 
a half dozen running. Everybody is not built 
that way, I know, for many men are nearly as 
good on running game as on standing. So I 
braced up on the second effort and was able 
to hold the sight so steady that as soon as I 
squeezed the trigger I knew I had my game. All 
I could see was the big animal rear up and turn 

149 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

in the opposite direction. Believing that he 
traveled a short distance going in this direction, 
but not knowing for sure, as the foliage hid him, 
I fired two more shots at about the place I 
judged he would be if he had kept going. When 
I went down I found him dying from the first 
and only shot that hit him. 

The bullet struck him in the left side, passed 
thru both shoulders — smashing the humerus 
bone of each shoulder at exactly the same relative 
point — and passed out through the hide of the 
right shoulder. (The bullet was the regular 
22o-grain soft point .30 U. S. '03.) The work 
of this bullet was almost unbelievable. I would 
have had doubts about its wonderful effect if I 
hadn't seen it. That this bullet could go through 
the two humerus bones of a big moose, contin- 
uing through his body, tearing bones and flesh 
so frightfully, and yet be able to remain intact 
sufficiently to make its exit on the opposite side 
thru a hole in the skin not larger than an inch 
in size, was something very remarkable, 1 
thought. While I have killed grizzly bears, 
moose and elk with this same shell before, and 
never feared for the result, yet now that I had 
before me this latest and most wonderful demon- 
stration of its execution I am stronger for it 
than ever before — and, in the language of the 
vernacular, that is "going some." 

I had been very fortunate in my shooting so 
far, my first four animals being killed by a single 

150 



MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

bullet^ each, and every one of them practically 
dropping in their tracks — a record that speaks 
volumes for the .30 U. S. in both '06 and '03 
ammunition — the '06 being used on sheep and 
goats and the '03 on moose. I am sorry I cannot 
record such clean work for my subsequent 
shooting on this trip. 

It is a matter of regret with me that records 
were not kept of the execution of the shells used 
by the other members of our party. I have fre- 
quently mentioned in this narrative the wonder- 
ful smashing effect of Cap*s .250, which usually 
churned up the insides of an animal fiercely, 
especially if hit in the paunch or thereabouts. 
Harry's and William's autoloading ammunition 
gave great satisfaction, I know, from the reports 
voiced about the campfire, as well as the .35 
which was used by them occasionally; but a de- 
tailed report of each shot would be of inestimable 
value here, and I regret exceedingly my inability 
to produce it. 

It was 11:30 a. m. when I saw this bull, and 
2 p. m. when I killed him — too and one-half 
hours of the most interesting and enjoyable 
stalk on big game that I have ever experienced. 

While some very large moose heads have been 
secured in the White River country — as witness 
three that Mr. Corcoran killed there two years 
ago of 623^, 58, and 53-inch spread respectively 
— yet on the whole I think the spreads are very 
narrow considering the palmations, size of the 

151 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

bulls, etc. In 19 17 Mr. Young's party killed 
eight very nice bulls, and yet the largest only 
had a 52-inch spread. There is no doubt that, 
in order to get the largest moose antlers, one 
must go to the Kenai Peninsula, and yet of 
course the difference in the largest White River 
heads and the largest Kenai heads (in spread) 
would probably not be more than a very few 
inches. 

I reached camp at 6 o'clock, where the usual 
hot soup, venison and other good things were 
devoured with keenest relish. None of the 
other hunters saw any game whatever in their 
travels that day. 

The morning following, Rogers, Longley, Cap 
and I went up to the moose with pack horses — 
the former two to skin it out and bring it to 
camp, and Cap and I to hunt. After taking some 
photographs we measured the animal — a very 
ordinary sized moose — with the following results: 
Nose to tip of tail, contour over body, 10 ft. 
4 ins.; shoulder bone to hip bone, 5 ft.; shoulder 
top to bottom straight through (brisket to top 
of withers), 31 ins.; thickness through shoulders, 
19 ins.; thickness thru hips, i6>^ ins.; height at 
withers, 6 ft. 7 ins.; spread of horn, 45 ins.; eye 
to end of nose, 18 ins.; palmation length, 2 ft. 
3>^ ins.; palmation width, 14 ins.; points, 20. 

At 10 o'clock Cap and I left the boys to con- 
tinue their work and began our day's hunt, each 
selecting different routes, afoot. I traveled 

152 



MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

northward through an ideal moose country, pass- 
ing half a dozen lakes and covering about twelve 
miles, but without seeing anything larger than 
a bird. Cap arrived at camp a little after 
me, reporting that he had seen a bear that 
walked as if crippled. He saw the brute at 
a distance of seven hundred yards, but seeing 
no way of getting closer, made no attempt 
to stalk it. 

Harry and Wooden went up the river for 
moose today, to a country visited yesterday by 
William and Wooden. Many fresh tracks were 
seen, but no game. William and Jimmie went 
down the river, and while they saw some caribou 
on the bar, they were at too great a distance and 
surrounded by such unfavorable conditions for 
stalking that it was useless to attempt to get 
up to them. 

On September 5th (the next morning) Harry, 
William, Billy and Jimmy went down the river 
for caribou. They succeeded in bringing down 
three — all in the velvet — a cow, a 3-year-old and 
a yearling. Jimmy crippled the cow first by 
breaking her leg, after which Harry finished her. 
William made a beautiful shot on the 3-year-old 
bull, bringing him to earth at five hundred yards 
while the animal was on the full run. Those 
who saw the shot said that it was not only a 
very creditable one for William, but a most 
spectacular sight as well. William also killed 
the yearhng. 

^S3 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

Here I may as well record a feeling that I ex- 
perienced many times on this trip — brought to 
mind thru mention of WilHam*s good shooting 
at the bull caribou: It was a source of much 
regret with me that I was not permitted to wit- 
ness some of William's shooting — also of Harry's. 
But as we were each day hunting separately 
when we secured game, I was deprived of the 
pleasure of joining my companions in their mo- 
ments of ecstacy after bringing down a game 
animal — as well as of having them share with 
me in my delights on such occasions. It seems 
we all suffered the hardships together, but were 
compelled to enjoy the thrills separately. Of 
course, they usually had their guides with them, 
as I had mine, but it would have seemed just a 
little nearer home if we could have had one or 
two of the party along when these ecstatic 
moments arrived. 

Hubrick and I had the only cameras in the 
outfit, with the exception of a Graflex carried 
by Rogers, the "combination*' of which he lost 
early on the hunt through his inability to change 
the plates. Thus the game killed by the other 
members of the party was not photographed, 
as none of it was taken to camp whole. 

I should certainly have enjoyed seeing William 
topple over that bull as it swung at full speed 
across the bar, if for no other reason than to 
record the event as I saw it. William was an ex- 
ceptional young man in camp and on the trail — 

154 



MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

the coolest-headed, most reserved chap in the 
face of adversity or an emergency I have ever 
been out with, and one of the most obliging and 
uniformly courteous companions imaginable. 
On this day Harry had a very distressing ex- 
perience and one that might have turned out 
disastrously with a less careful man. He and 
Jimmy Brown were stalking a caribou on the 
river bar of the Generc, but from different direc- 
tions, each trying to drive it toward the other. 
They were separated by about five hundred 
yards, and William and Billy (together) occupied 
another position about the same distance from 
Harry as Jimmy was. The three parties thereby 
formed the three points of a triangle. Suddenly 
Jimmy disappeared from Harry's view in a 
"wash'' of the bar. For some time he remained 
out of sight. Then, glancing toward the position 
occupied by William and Billy, who had re- 
mained concealed from view up to this time, 
Harry saw the black, uncovered head of Billy 
projecting above its hiding place in the bar. 
Thinking it was Jimmy, who had sneaked up to 
this position, Harry immediately released all 
thought of Jimmy as being in his old location, 
and fired in that direction occasionally as the 
course of the animal justified. It was lucky of 
course that no one was hurt. The incident is 
recorded here for the lesson that it may be to 
other hunters who may some time find them- 
selves in the same position under similar con- 

155 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

ditions. Of course in this instance no one was 
at all to blame for what happened. 

On this day Cap and I crossed the Generc 
early in the morning. This is a glacial stream, 
the bar (or bed) of which is two miles across, 
being cut up by many channels, and very swift 
flowing. We climbed the mountain on the op- 
posite side of the Generc for a hunt in the car- 
ibou country. We separated at the foot of the 
mountain, going up separate draws. After I 
reached the top — a great barren, rolling country 
— I was attracted first by the snort of my horse 
and later by a couple of dark objects that were 
lying down four hundred yards ahead, in the 
direction in which the horse had scented the 
**danger." As I dismounted and stood behind 
my horse they (a cow caribou and yearling) 
came toward me much as a curious antelope 
would approach a **flagging'* outpost. They 
were both in the velvet — the yearling with horns 
not over eight inches long. As I didn't care for 
them for our group — both being in velvet — I 
didn't make any attempt at stalking. They 
moved around me in a quartercircle, and after 
all of us (even the horse, who was very much 
perturbed) had satisfied our curiosity they dis- 
appeared in a swale beyond and were seen no 
more. 

I soon saw Cap thru the glasses on another 
mountain opposite me, and as he was working 
down I also descended. I had covered about 

156 



MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

all the country within reach, and as the after- 
noon was waning I decided that I had done about 
all the hunting for the day that I cared to. Be- 
sides, finding these caribou yet in the velvet had 
no exhilarating eflFect on my spirits, as it seemed 
when we did actually find game that we might 
kill it was not in the condition desired — some 
hard luck. So I kept on descending, hoping to 
meet Cap below, he soon being swallowed up 
from view in the timber. It was not, however, 
until I was well on my way to camp in the heavy 
timber that I heard him calling me from an 
eminence on my back track. He had found my 
trail and was hurrying to catch me. He saw a 
cow moose and calf in the timber while coming 
oflF the mountain, but feared that some shots I 
had fired to give him my location might have 
scared them, so thought it unnecessary to go 
back. Besides, it was a great distance and quite 
a climb to where they were — too far for us to go 
and get to camp that night. 

On the rest of our way down we followed Car- 
ibou Creek, where I was surprised to see many 
tracks of ewes and lambs far below timberline — 
also, near the bed of the Generc, at least one 
thousand feet below timberline, the partly de- 
voured carcass of a lamb that evidently had been 
killed by eagles. Close to this lamb there were 
many sheep tracks, showing that the habits of 
these animals on this mountain must be some- 
what diflFerent from that of their brothers on the 

157 



IN THE ALASKA- YUKON GAMELANDS 

other ranges. While camped on this crest five 
years before with Messrs. Vereker and Cad- 
bury, two English sportsmen hunting under his 
guidance. Cap had noticed that the sheep were 
in the habit of passing his camp in the timber 
every day. As they had plenty of water above, 
their object could not have been for the purpose 
of finding drink; possibly some especial browse 
in that locality was the attraction. We reached 
camp at 7 o*clock. 

We all drew blanks the next day. Harry and 
Jimmy went down the Generc for caribou. They 
saw two, but as they were about the same as to 
size and sex as those secured the previous day 
they did not molest them. William and Billy 
went up the Generc, but the signs not being right, 
they returned early. Cap and I climbed the hill 
in the direction of my moose killing, but the 
ubiquitous ill-omen seemed to be with us, so we 
marched down the hill again and to camp, de- 
ciding then and there that if there were any 
more moose or caribou thereabouts they were so 
scarce as to be not worth the time and labor 
required to go and get them. 

The next morning saw us working like beavers 
packing up and getting ready to move back to 
our old sheep camp on the Kletsan, hoping that, 
either while en route or at that camp we might 
see some encouraging moose or caribou sign; or, 
if we should not, then we planned hunting there 
a few days for sheep. Harry and I, with about 

158 



MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

an hour's start of the outfit, traveled on horse- 
back over the barrens above timberline a little 
ways above the trail taken by the packs, hoping 
to be able to sight some caribou on the way. 
After going a few miles and when a short dis- 
tance above timberline, we espied what we took 
to be a caribou cow and calf at a distance of five 
hundred yards. Our heads only showed above 
the ridge-line as we advanced, so they did not 
see us. Dismounting, we put the glasses on 
them. Unfortunately we were facing the sun, 
and therefore they appeared as black animals 
without horns, with clear outlines but no detail. 
As our thoughts were of caribou it didn't enter 
our minds that they were anything else — failing 
to consider that even the cow caribou had horns 
— so, not desiring any cow or younger specimens 
of that species, we boldly walked out in full view. 
They then saw us and trotted away. As they 
didn't look just right, I used the glasses again. 
As soon as my eye fell on them now I saw they 
were moose. They were going fast by this time 
and away from our traveling direction, but to- 
ward the trail of the packs, so, concluding that 
some member of the outfit might pick them up, 
we didn't attempt to follow them. Besides, it 
would have been useless in their frightened state. 
We resumed our travel toward the Dalton 
cabin, on the Kletsan, stopping to "bile the 
kettle" en route. In his daily hunting trips on 
this expedition Harry had been following this 

159 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

custom — either he or the guide carrying a tea- 
pot and the necessary accessories for the oc- 
casion. It was the first "kettle-biling" I had 
done since hunting in New Brunswick, and it 
didn't seem bad. Passing the Dalton cabin we 
lumbered down the remaining eight miles to our 
Kletsan camp, which we found occupied by 
Dr. J. F. Hill, of Kennecott, and his guides. Con 
Miller and G. A. Gallup. The pack outfit fol- 
lowed us in almost immediately. As it was now 
late in the day it was necessary for us to make 
camp here, at least for the night, but we informed 
the genial doctor (to whom, by the way, Harry 
had a letter of introduction) that we would 
move on the morrow. This action, however, he 
refused to tolerate, at the same time telling us 
that we must remain right where we were until 
we had finished our hunting; that he had secured 
two nice rams (one of which — a beauty — I later 
photographed with its captor), and that he 
would feel grossly insulted if we should move. 
This splendid spirit assured us, so we decided to 
remain, at least for a few days. Dr. Hill had 
already finished his sheep hunting, having 
secured his rams at the head of the Kletsan, 
near where I got the small ram and ewe, and 
from now on he intended to hunt only for moose. 
He informed us that he was due in McCarthy 
the same day we were (September i6) so it was 
nice to think we should have his company back. 
That evening we "mixed medicine" with Dr. 
Hill around the wigwam until a late hour, during 

1 60 



MOOSE AND CARIBOU 

which we talked over our proposed sheep hunt of 
the following day. He said that when he had se- 
cured his rams a few days before there were others 
left, and he further stated that he thought these 
might yet be found in nearly the same place. 
The question that now arose was this: Of the 
two available hunting grounds that could be 
covered from this camp — the Upper Kletsan 
and Figgins Mountain — which should we at- 
tempt? Harry had asked me to accompany 
him and his guide, Jimmie Brown, to the Upper 
Kletsan, and I had concluded to go with him 
(allowing the other members to hunt for moose) 
when Cap suggested that we were foolish to at- 
tempt that trip when we had such good hunting 
as Figgins Mountain afforded. This started a 
discussion which ended in Harry suggesting that 
we split — he and Jimmy to go to one place and 
Cap and I to the other. This seemed agreeable 
— the idea being to siwash it the first night and 
thereby be able to hunt two days. Now the 
question that remained to be settled was — who 
should go to Figgins Mountain and who to the 
other point? I gladly offered to give Harry his 
choice, which he reluctantly accepted in favor of 
the Upper Kletsan. When I say "reluctantly" 
in this connection I say so advisedly, for Harry 
is slower in accepting favors than in extending 
them. Big-hearted and jolly, it was but natural 
that on this trip he should prove himself the 
gentleman-sportsman which in our home city I 
had always found him to be. 

i6i 



Eighth Chapter 



RAMS AND CARIBOU 



EIGHTH CHAPTER 
RAMS AND CARIBOU 

' I ^HE morning of September 8th in our camp 
-■* broke with great preparation and expectancy 
by at least two members (Harry and myself) and 
our guides. This was to be the last favorable 
opportunity that either he or I should have of 
getting game on the trip. We needed a good ram 
or two for our sheep groups, and also a lamb to 
fill. Besides these, we hoped to be able to bring 
back a personal trophy — not to be considered, 
however, until we should have filled the mu- 
seum's demands, if that were possible. While 
we were on this two-day trip it was hoped that 
William, Rogers and the others, by their com- 
bined scouting, should be able to fill on the moose 
and possibly the caribou group. So, as we each 
went our separate ways that morning — ^Harry 
and Jimmy up the Kletsan and Cap and I (with 
Longley along to pack our tent and belongings) 
headed for Figgins Mountain — it is safe to say 
that we had much the feeling of the son leaving 
the old homestead to seek his fortune after 
bidding the folks goodby. 

During our morning ride along the side of 
165 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

Figgins Mountain, Cap and I saw several small 
bunches of sheep, easily picked out with the 
naked eye. At noon we camped eight miles 
from main camp, in a draw protected by the 
last remnant of trees available near timberline, 
pitched our tent, ate a hurried lunch and, after 
allowing Longley to go to permanent camp (with 
advice to return tomorrow afternoon for us), we 
were ready to talk sheep. As we faced the moun- 
tain, to our right reposed a band of ewes and 
lambs a couple of miles away on the side of a 
ridge that sloped down from the mountain. To 
the left, the same distance, on another ridge 
similarly sloping from the main eminence, lay a 
bunch of six or seven rams. Ordinarily those 
rams would have looked the most tempting of 
the two chances open to us, but there were other 
things to consider. We really needed a lamb 
worse than a ram, and besides, we had it figured 
out that we could go up that afternoon and get 
our lamb, and be able to bag a ram or two on 
the following day. 

So, very bold-heartedly we approached the 
draw which led to the ewes and lambs. It was 
1 :30 p. m. when, nearly two miles from camp, at 
a point where it canoned up, we saw the ewes 
and lambs cross the little canon about 500 yards 
ahead of us. There were five ewes and two 
lambs in the flock. We circled to the opposite 
side of the gulch from that to which they were 
crossing and crawled up behind a rock 300 yards 

166 



RAMS AND CARIBOU 

from them. I took the first shot at one of the 
lambs, but missed. Then Cap opened fire, after 
which we both continued to shoot until each of 
us had probably sent six or eight shots after that 
little inoffensive ovis dalli. While it didn't then 
look as if we hit it at all, we made it very un- 
pleasant for the little boy until finally Cap 
toppled it over just as it was crossing the crest 
of the ridge with a shot in the head. When skin- 
ning it out we noticed that it had also been shot 
thru the intestines. An examination of the hide 
both in the field and at the museum shows that 
this hole was made by a hard-pointed bullet, and 
while Cap was using soft points in his shooting 
(and I hard points), yet he says he remembers 
shoving in a hard-point bullet at some time 
during the fusillade. Therefore, we shall prob- 
ably never know who hit this youngster in the 
stomach, but it matters not anyway. Cap did 
some splendid work in bringing down the little 
fellow at the final distance at which he was hit — 
about 400 yards, on the run. We reached our 
siwash camp with the skin, bones and meat of 
the lamb at 5 o'clock. 

We arose at 5 the next morning and at 6:30 
started for the summit with rams as our sole ob- 
jective. The crest of the mountain toward which 
we climbed was semi-circular in form, leaving an 
amphitheater-shaped depression within the hol- 
low of the mountainside. Toward this hollow 
we climbed, passing en route the ridge from 

167 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

which, on our inward trip, we had made such a 
mess in shooting at the two lambs recorded in 
an earlier chapter. We climbed this ridge, as it 
led up to the rim of our goal, and when about 
half-way up we saw seven sheep on the opposite 
side of the ridge. They proved to be young rams 
and ewes, so we left them undisturbed. 

We finally reached the summit, 2,500 feet 
higher than our siwash camp, and continued 
to follow around the semi-circular rim. Soon we 
reached a point from which we saw sheep with 
the glasses about three miles away and far below 
us on the opposite side of the mountain from 
camp. As we neared the precipice of the sum- 
mit we detected other scattering bands below us, 
until finally the slopes of that mountain for a 
square mile or two were dotted with white 
specks. We stood at one point and counted 
eighty-eight ewes and lambs, but not a ram 
seemed to be in evidence. They were peacefully 
feeding, or lying down, in bunches of twos, threes 
and up to ten, with here and there a single sheep. 

We nearly frightened a little lamb to death. 
It was first seen at about fifty feet below us, and 
we, being unobserved, were able to come on it 
rather suddenly. When we showed ourselves 
a swooping eagle from the skies could not have 
had a more demoralizing effect on that young 
sheep. It simply tumbled all over itself getting 
to its mother. The very small proportionate 
number of lambs seen before us (not nearly as 

168 



RAMS AND CARIBOU 

many as of ewes) bore strong testimony to the 
terrible toll that the eagles take of the young 
sheep. I mentally resolved at sight of this con- 
vincing evidence to begin a new and unending 
warfare on these piratical birds. While their 
damage to sheep life is proverbial, even in the 
States, I don't believe any given area in Mon- 
tana or Wyoming has one-tenth the number of 
eagles that is found in a similar area in Alaska 
and Yukon Territory. They are to be seen there 
almost continually. Bounties on eagles should 
be placed sufficiently high as to reduce their 
number below the present point of danger to 
mountain sheep and other game. The present 
bounty on these birds in Alaska is only 50 cents 
— it could better be $5.00. 

As we were after rams, the pastoral scene be- 
low had no interest for us beyond the enjoyment 
of it and the instructive feature connected with 
it; therefore, we reluctantly turned from the 
beautiful spectacle and faced toward the bolder 
summits of ramland. We crossed a **saddle*' 
and soon found ourselves on top of a very rugged 
peak with precipitous, black sides. To the far- 
ther point of this we walked and took a peep into 
the abyss, or canon, below. The first glance dis- 
closed six nice rams lying together on a grassy 
slope, 1,000 feet below and almost immediately 
beneath us. It was now 1 130 p. m. and Cap felt 
a little dubious about our making the stalk and 
getting our rams in any seasonable time at ail. 

169 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

The day was clear and comparatively calm, and 
Cap guessed that if we could slide off the moun- 
tain on the east side (the rams were south of us) 
the wind would be in our favor for the stalk. A 
look down the east side showed it to be a rather 
precarious drop. In fact, we might find that it 
could not be made at all. For over 200 feet from 
the top the drop was almost perpendicular. 
Only by following fissures and taking advantage 
of projecting ^'steps'* could we hope to descend. 
Cap didn't think we could make it, but we per- 
severed, and finally found ourselves successfully 
worming our way down. Once this ledge was 
negotiated, the rest seemed easy. We were soon 
down on the steep, grassy slopes where the un- 
even contours afforded excellent stalking ground. 
We approached to within 500 yards of the 
bunch, which by this time had arisen and were 
working in a quarterly direction our way, slowly 
feeding. They were moving like snails, or so it 
seemed to the two hunters located eleven miles 
from permanent camp who expected to get in 
before midnight. They were feeding toward a 
slight rise, and as their course would take them 
below and beyond it, we awaited eagerly the 
time when the little knoll would cover them, ex- 
pecting at that moment to make a dash for some 
projecting rocks a couple of hundred yards 
nearer them. We dared not now make such a 
sneak for fear of exposing ourselves. From their 
present snail-like progress we surmised it would 

170 



RAMS AND CARIBOU 

take them at least half an hour to work under 
cover, and each minute of that thirty was golden 
to us, who begrudged every delay they made. 
We lay behind some projecting rocks awaiting 
developments. I heard a gurgling sound and 
looked back to find Cap asleep. In about the 
conjectured time one of the rams vanished be- 
hind the knoll. A 50-foot blanket would cover 
the remaining five as they, too, disappeared. I 
awoke Cap with a slap and we were soon moving 
fast toward our goal behind the rocky ledge. We 
followed this projection fifty yards, then sank 
into a swale, which we followed a ways and 
finally came out above them about 250 yards 
away. Cap spied on them and said he could kill 
one from where we lay. I advised a further 
stalk, and as it seemed favorable owing to a 
slight depression lying for seventy-five yards 
ahead of us, we crept and slid toward them until 
we were about 150 yards away. I raised up and 
saw, for the first time, that they were disturbed. 
My first shot standing, I am ashamed to say, 
missed. Cap said he would hold his fire until I 
had one down. My second shot piled one of 
them up, but he was soon up and moving. By 
this time they were all going. Cap missed his 
first shot, a most difficult one at best, but his 
next knocked one over. Then I hit one, bringing 
him down, but he was up again. He walked 
slow, as he was hard hit. Cap chased after the 
fleeing ones and on the run at 400 yards he was 

171 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

able to bring another down. I remained back 
and finished my two wounded rams, while Cap, 
not knowing that I had killed these crippled 
ones, kept firing until he had two down. This 
made four total — plenty for the museum and for 
personal trophies. All the rams killed by us had 
full curls of horn and base measurements around 
13^4 to 14 inches, very nice average ovis daUi, 
8 to 10 years old. 

Intending to dress the two that I had killed, I 
descended into a little canon where lay the first 
one, and after he was gralloched I climbed to- 
ward the other, when I heard Cap's voice caUing 
me from far up the draw on our homeward 
course. He called so long and persistently that 
I started for him, leaving my other ram un- 
touched, as well as passing one of his on the way 
that had not been dressed. I couldn't under- 
stand Cap's anxiety (for at first, while he was 
out of sight, I feared that he might have had an 
accident) ; but when after a half-hour's climbing 
I reached him he said we must hurry if we were 
to get to camp before midnight — that it would be 
all right to leave the animals out overnight 
without dressing them. 

After congratulating Cap on his wonderful 
shooting (for it was an exhibition that brought 
forth my greatest admiration, owing to the dis- 
tance at which he killed his two sheep — around 
400 yards — and the fact that they were traveling 
fast), we chmbed up the divide toward camp. 

172 



RAMS AND CARIBOU 

It was 5 p. m. when we crawled out of this "pot- 
hole" onto the saddle above, and 6 o'clock when 
(with the assistance of Longley, who had come 
to meet us with the saddle horses) we reached 
our siwash camp. It took us just twenty minutes 
to pack our tent, bedding, etc., on the horse, and 
at 8:30 we reached our permanent camp, across 
the White River. 

Here we learned of Harry's failure on game 
while on his siwash trip on the Upper Kletsan 
with Brownie. It seems they made temporary 
camp on the afternoon of the first day on one of 
the tributaries of the Kletsan that headed in the 
foothills of Mt. Natazhat. After lunch Brownie 
took a reconnoiter up farther toward the moun- 
tain and soon discovered some rams. He hur- 
ried back to camp to tell Harry, but by the time 
he arrived it was found too late to go for them 
that day, so it was planned to get an early start 
on the morrow. 

Next morning it seems Brownie couldn't tell 
positively which mountain or ridge he had seen 
the sheep on. This upset the plans so com- 
pletely that they decided to abandon the idea of 
going for these rams, but to skirt the mountain 
to the west in the hope of finding others and 
return by way of Camp Creek. This plan was 
followed, but without seeing any game at all. 
Consequently Harry was a very much dis- 
couraged man when he arrived at camp and our 
heartiest sympathy went out to him. He had 

173 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

fully counted on getting a ram, for either the 
museum or himself, and had worked hard for it. 

During the two days that we were gone Wil- 
liam and Billy Wooden hunted moose. The 
first day they covered fifteen miles on foot and 
the second twenty-two miles (sixteen of which 
was afoot), and, while the section hunted was 
the best moose country in that vicinity, they 
failed to even see an animal. 

Rogers and Shorty, on the second day of our 
absence, went out for moose, and while taking 
a rest in sight of a Hkely looking lake Shorty fell 
asleep. Soon Rogers saw something move at the 
shore of this lake and finally detected three car- 
ibou there — a big bull and three smaller bulls, 
all with clean antlers. This, indeed, was a find 
for our taxidermist, and with true zeal and 
Indian-like stealth he removed his shoes and 
approached them in his stocking feet. The car- 
ibou were feeding on a bar at the edge of a lake, 
perfectly unmindful of the impending danger. 
Al was able to reach a spot 175 yards from them 
and opened up on the big bull with his .303. The 
first shot broke the animal's front leg, the next 
came within a few inches of his heart, and the 
third hit the heart. The fourth shot broke his 
hind leg. One shot six inches from the heart 
finished one of the other bulls. 

Shorty, awakened by the bombardment, after 
dreaming that he was hunting goats from an 
aeroplane, jumped into his senses and tore down 

174 



RAMS AND CARIBOU 

to the lake in haste to congratulate his lucky 
companion. William and Billy, who were hunt- 
ing moose in that vicinity, attracted by the 
shooting, came over and were delighted to note 
the nice pair that Rogers drew. He and Shorty 
remained with the animals, skinning them out 
and packing up the meat, bones and hides, ar- 
riving in camp at midnight. As this was the 
first and only game killed by Al, he was warmly 
congratulated by all of us over his splendid suc- 
cess. The measurements of antlers on his big 
bull were as follows: Length of beam, outside 
curve, 52 in.; spread, 37 in.; points, left side, 
14 in.; right, 15 in. 

This day one of the packers killed a cow moose 
that in size and pelage made a good mate for my 
bull. 

The following morning I left camp in company 
with Bill Longley and Jimmie Brown for the 
scene of our sheep killing of the day before. We 
left camp at 8 o'clock and reached the game 
(eleven miles away) at i. When we found the 
rams, we saw, to our disgust, that the eagles had 
scratched and torn much hair from the bodies 
of three of them, leaving the other unharmed. 
As I rounded a turn in the canon where my first 
ram lay I saw a big golden eagle perched on the 
carcass. I could easily have killed the bird if I 
had taken my gun, but, having secured all the 
sheep we desired, I walked down the 300 yards 
to the ram unarmed. When I reached the sheep 

175 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

I found a patch a foot square on the side of the 
belly denuded of hair, apparently picked off with 
the bill. The entrails were found just as I had 
left them the evening before, untouched, while 
the opening in the body had also not been 
touched. Where the hair was picked off the skin 
was unharmed, the object in tearing off the hair 
apparently being one of mischief rather than of 
food supply. The other two rams were damaged 
similarly to the one just described, the skin on 
the bodies in no case being punctured — a pretty 
sure indication that the eagles of Alaska, altho 
prevailing in great numbers, do not suffer much 
from scarcity of food. 

Later, when we returned to camp and de- 
scribed the work of the eagles, one of the men 
remarked that it was no wonder — after leaving 
the animals out over night without dressing 
them. It seemed to be the impression also 
among others with whom I later conversed on 
the subject that eagles would damage undressed 
animals, but not those which had been dressed. 
However, this theory is proven false by the fact 
that the one which I gralloched was spoiled the 
worst, while they left iinharrned one which had 
not been dressed. 

As three of these specimens were useless to 
the museum, it was arranged that I should take 
the two killed by me as personal trophies and 
Harry the remaining one. Their usefulness for 

176 



RAMS AND CARIBOU 

wall mounts was in no manner impaired, as none 
of the necks or shoulders were spoiled. 

Most all the rams killed by us carried horns of 
the diverging type. As to the terms "narrow'* 
and "diverging" as used to describe the character 
of spread in sheep horns, there does not seem to 
be a perfect unanimity of understanding among 
sportsmen on the significance of the terms. For 
instance, one set of sportsmen (the writer in- 
cluded) has classed as "narrow'' the heads of 
narrow spread, and as "diverging" those of wide 
spread. Charles Sheldon, author of "The Wil- 
derness of the Upper Yukon" and other books, 
and who has given deep study to the big game of 
the North, says that insofar as his use of the 
terms is concerned, it is a question of angles 
wholly — with the cheek of the animal as the 
perpendicular. When the horn sweeps downward 
approaching this perpendicular (some horns, I 
believe, almost parallel it) he classes it as the 
"narrow" type. As horns sweep outward to- 
ward a right angle they diverge away from the 
perpendicular. This type he calls "diverging." 
Thus, a set of horns with an exceedingly wide 
spread, such as ovis poli and ovis ammon (Asiatic 
specimens) would be classed by Sheldon as nar- 
now types, because, although they flare out at 
the tips and have world-record spreads, they 
sweep downward close to the cheek of the animal 
before flaring out. 



177 



IN THE ALASKA- YUKON GAMELANDS 

I cannot refrain from expressing a slight pref- 
erence for the narrow type (small spread) horn 
as compared to the diverging (wide spread). 
This statement applies not only to our noble 
Rocky Mountain sheep {ovis canadensis)^ but to 
the beautiful white (and alHed) sheep of the 
North as well. 

When we reached camp at 8:30 p. m. we 
learned that Harry and Wooden had spent the 
day moose hunting south of camp, but without 
success. William, Al and Cap went for the cow 
moose that was killed the day before. 

Thus ended the hunting days of our party on 
this trip, so we planned to leave for McCarthy 
the next morning. In some respects the event 
of our leaving the hunting country ushered in a 
certain degree of sadness. Our trip had been 
wonderfully filled with experience and adven- 
ture; our endurance had at times been tested to 
the limit; we were taking home some beautiful 
specimens for our museum (with others later to 
follow which our guides promised would be sent) ; 
so to some extent we relished the change that 
was to take us to the outside. 



178 



3^th Chapter 



A NEW SPECIES OF CARIBOU 
RANGIFER MCGUIREI 



NINTH CHAPTER 

A NEW SPECIES OF CARIBOU 
RANGIFER McGUIREI 

V\7HILE the whole purpose of our trip to 
^^ the North was collecting specimens, yet 
unconsciously, it seems, we were so fortunate 
as to discover a species of caribou that was 
quite new to science. This form is charac- 
terized by the differences in the color and mark- 
ings, the form of the antlers and the cranial and 
dental variations when compared with its rela- 
tives, osborni on the south, and stonei on the 
west. 

Of interest in the present connection is the 
evidence that the herds of migratory caribou 
that cross the Yukon River in the vicinity of 
Fairbanks belong to this variety, for while the 
type specimen was obtained far south of that 
point, the number of animals is greatly increased 
during the fall months through arrivals from the 
northwest, and it is probable the type locality 
represents the southern limits of the breeding 
range of mcguirei, 

I am including a description of the new 
i8i 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

species herewith, as well as some cuts illustrating 
the vital characteristics, for I feel that I would 
be quite lacking in appreciation if I should fail 
to describe the animal in this volume and thereby 
acknowledge the compliment that has been paid 
me by Jesse D. Figgins, director of the Colorado 
Museum of Natural History, in naming the new 
caribou in my honor: 

DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES OF CARIBOU FROM 

THE REGION OF THE ALASKA-YUKON 

BOUNDARY 

BY J. D. FIGGINS 

During August and September, 191 8, Messrs. 
J. A. McGuire and H. C. James secured for the 
Colorado Museum of Natural History, in the 
region of the Alaska- Yukon boundary, various 
specimens of large mammals. Among these are 
six examples of caribou and as they differ ma- 
terially when compared with osborni and the 
published pictured description of stoneiy it is 
proposed that they be known as 

Rangifer mcguirei, Sp, Nov* 

Characters. — ^Absence of white around the 
eyes (only faintly suggested in one young speci- 
men); back darker than legs; tip of nose and 

'Rangifer Mcguirei is named in honor of Mr. J. A. McGuire, of Denver, 
Colorado, who, as a naturalist-sportsman and editor of "Outdoor Life," has been 
one of the foremost leaders in the protection of North American game animals and 
whose example and influence have been of inestimable value in establishing a higher 
standard of sportsmanship. 

182 










C 

a: 

o 
a 

i 



■^K_*!v-_y-' 



A NEW SPECIES OF CARIBOU 

lower lip silvery white; between the jaws, entire 
throat and sides of neck and over shoulders 
varying from brownish gray in calves of the 
year to white in fully mature examples; backs 
of ears and along the posterior portion of head 
and neck light grayish, being gradually displaced 
by white or yellowish gray towards the shoul- 
ders; a broad band of grayish buff or buffy 
white extending diagonally from the color of the 
shoulders to the region of the elbow and along 
the sides to flank. (The last named characters 
vary with the age of the animal, but are pro- 
nounced in all examples from a calf of the year 
to fully adult specimens — the markings on the 
shoulders and sides being the most prominent 
in young animals, the white neck being acquired 
upon full development.) A band of dark brown 
separating light stripe on sides from white of 
underparts. 

Hoofs, small; antlers, differing in type when 
compared with osborni and stonei^ notably in the 
length of single brow tine and the formation of 
the first branch. 

Skull, excessive anterior cleft and flattening 
of nasals; length and backward curvature of the 
paroccipital processes; width of lachrymals, 
smooth and rounded surface of processes above 
m^ and m^ (see illustration for dentition). 

Type. — Adult male, Kletsan creek, a tribu- 
tary of the White River, four miles east of the 
' 183 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

Alaska-Yukon boundary, Sept. 9, 1918. Col- 
lected by A. C. Rogers, Colorado Museum of 
Natural History, No. 1846, field No. 23. 

Measurements from the freshly killed animal, — 
Length, 2472; tail, 224; hind foot, 659; length 
of front hoofs, no and 106; length of hind 
hoofs, 97 and 98. 

Description, — ^Type: ends of nose and lower 
lip, silvery white; upper portions of face, light 
fuscous, darker adjoining the white on nose; 
sides of face, including region about the eyes, 
light hair brown; backs of ears and posterior 
portion of neck, light yellowish gray, the latter 
displaced with very pale brownish or grayish 
white on base of neck and across upper shoul- 
ders; under jaws, entire throat and sides of neck 
white, merging into the color of upper neck and 
shoulders; an acute **V** shaped stripe back of 
elbow pointing towards flank; back, hair brown; 
sides, drab; legs, slightly darker; belly and anal 
region, white; tail with wedge-shaped stripe of 
drab on upper surface. 

Skull measurements: 

Basal length 387 

Tip of premaxilla to nasal 126 

Length of nasals 122 

Tip of premaxilla to alveolus of p^ 146 

Breadth at m^ 107 

Mastoid breadth 148 

Zygomatic breadth 154 

Palatal breadth at m* 74 

184 




c 

a: 



c 

s 

o 

a 

(A 

a 



A NEW SPECIES OF CARIBOU 

Upper tooth row 104 

Canine to p^ 73 

Depth of skull between antlers • 1 14 

Antlers, main beam along curve 1202 

Greatest spread of beams 954 

Distance between points of beams 819 

Breadth of palmation 89 

Length of single brow tine 407 

Length of palmated brow tine 407 

Length of first branch along curve 586 

Range. — While Rangifer mcguirei breed in lim- 
ited numbers in the vicinity of the type locality, 
they represent but a small percentage of those 
that appear from the north and northwest during 
September and October. It is probable this 
movement is an extension of the migration of 
caribou which occurs in the region of Fairbanks; 
but until there is positive evidence of this, the 
range of mcguirei may be designated as the vi- 
cinity of the Alaska- Yukon boundary from the 
base of Mt. St. EHas northward. 



185 



Tenth Qhapter 



HOMEWARD BOUND 



TENTH CHAPTER 
HOMEWARD BOUND 

A T 4 o'clock on the morning following our 
^ ^ return with the rams which Cap and I had 
killed (September lo), Longley and his packers 
were astir and went horse-wrangling. They re- 
turned at 7, however, without success. After 
breakfast they went out again, and at noon 
returned with the horses, minus four that could 
not be found. The opinion prevailed that they 
had gone back to the Generc, eighteen miles 
east, where their favorite pea-vine grows in such 
profusion. Following a short consultation after 
lunch, Jimmie Brown was dispatched to the 
Generc with orders to find the horses and return 
as soon as possible. Accordingly, he packed a 
scanty grubstake that would hardly fill an or- 
dinary hat, and without taking frying pan, 
knife or fork, tied his meager grub sack to the 
side of his saddle and mounted. "Where is your 
bedding?'* I asked. *'My saddle blankets," said 
he laconically, and he rode off. When I reflected 
that the stream at our door froze the night before 
and that a cup of water in my tent the same 
night froze solid, and furthermore that Jimmy 

189 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

might be gone several days for those pea-vine- 
mad horses, I inwardly congratulated myself 
that it was he and not I that was embarking on 
that journey with such a scant outfit, and yet I 
felt heartily sorry for that frail little man of iron 
nerve and indomitable spirit, for even a seasoned 
sourdough finds a limit to his perserverance and 
hardship. 

We were very anxious to get away as soon as 
possible in order to meet our boat, the North- 
western^ going down. It was on this craft that 
we had engaged berths, and if it were missed 
there was no telling when we should be able to 
leave Alaska owing to the vast numbers of people 
migrating from there at that time. Therefore, 
as evening approached we evinced a desire to 
get away next morning if that were possible with- 
out Jimmie and the four missing horses. By 
estimating the quantity of non-perishable things 
we had on hand, we figured that we had about 
enough bones, horns and antlers to pack four 
horses, and therefore it was decided to split up 
our specimens, taking with us the hides, horns 
in velvet and all other necessary and perishable 
articles and leave the horns and bones for Jimmy 
to pack in. 

Someone asked, after meditating on Jimmy's 
inability to lead us across the Russell Glacier, 
"Who'll lead us over the ice?" "Hell!" spoke 
up Shorty, the "reader" of dangerous glacial 
streams and the interpreter of soughing winds, 

190 




The singular dentition found in Rangifer Mcguirei 



HOMEWARD BOUND 

*'V\\ take you across that glacier and guarantee 
a safe crossing. Ice fields are no worse to cross 
than ice streams. Fully as many men have lost 
their lives in the streams as on the glaciers" — 
and we realized the truth of his statement, for 
with the ever-present quicksand and the con- 
stant changing of the channels, stream travel 
by packs is very dangerous. 

A stream like the White, the Nizina or the 
Generc has a stream-bed (or bar) of approxi- 
mately two miles across on the average. This 
bar (as I believe I have already stated) is com- 
posed of boulders, gravel, sand and quicksand. 
The latter is so common that the traveler must 
needs be constantly on the lookout for it. Horses 
have been lost in the quicksands of the White 
and tributary streams, and it is no very un- 
common thing to have to pull a sinking horse out 
by the neck. 

To look across one of these bars one would 
naturally take it for a waterless waste of sand 
and boulders, but when you travel out over its 
surface you encounter the channel — or one of 
them, as most always there are several — thru 
which rushes in mad fury the glacial, muddy 
water. 

Next morning, September 12th, after leaving 
some provisions and a note of instructions for 
Brownie, we packed up and departed McCarthy- 
ward. Good spirits pervaded all, and weather 
and trail conditions being favorable we made 

191 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

pretty good time to North Fork Island, our 
camping place. Harry and I went ahead, hoping 
to see a moose, caribou or bear. I got a shot at 
a red fox at seventy-five yards, but punctured 
only the innocent atmosphere. This shot really 
belonged to Harry, but in going thru the "after- 
you-Alphonse" stunt for nearly a minute, with 
no show of his accepting a shot, I fired. In his 
usual good-natured way he said I ploughed a 
furrow in the animaFs hair, but I know that the 
only furrow that was ploughed was thru the 
aerated liquid enveloping it. 

Next morning was a momentous one, as we 
were to cross the glacier that day. Harry and I 
again left ahead of the outfit (at 8:30), following 
the bed of the White. We came to within a mile 
or two of the glacier by noon. From the point 
where we ate our lunch its whitened teeth seemed 
to gnash defiance at our approach. A study of 
the great mountain precipices on either side of 
it showed that the glacier grinds down a veritable 
gulch gash, tearing up the sides of the canon in 
its slow but certain descent. 

And here was found much food for reflection 
on Alaska's great natural wonders, for in that 
country there are at work many opposing forces 
of both human and terrestrial nature. Apropos 
of this is a story told on the boat coming down, 
namely: "The Frenchman's toast to the Ameri- 
can cocktail: He put a little lemon in it to sour 
it, a Httle sugar in it to sweeten it, a little ice in it 

192 



HOMEWARD BOUND 

to cool it, a little whiskey in it to warm it — and zen 
he say, ^Here's to you/ but he drink it heeself/* 

Strong, rugged hearts are found in Alaska, 
and they belong to men who shrink not at the 
sight of danger; men who would willingly give 
up their lives, if necessary, to save another — 
and who are doing this very thing every year. 

Soon the packs came up and we began to 
ascend over the gulchy moraine to the bench of 
the glacier, some 300 feet in elevation above the 
bed of the White. Once on the glacier we became 
inspired with a feverish desire to move fast, for 
to camp on a glacier would be a most unpleasant 
experience; and yet there were many delays, for 
the packs would get bunched however careful 
we might be in trying to distribute our riders 
equidistant between them. We took a different 
route from the one coming in, also a shorter one. 

We had been on the glacier about three hours, 
and the tired horses had been lagging for some 
time, when suddenly a stir showed up in the 
ranks ahead. Packs jumped aside to allow a 
frenzied rider to pass, coming our way at full 
speed. Broken moraine rocks flipped off to 
either side of the trail, sent hither and thither 
by the clattering hoofs of a white horse, while 
Shorty's Napoleonic figure agitated and vibrated 
with excitement as he swung his arms in com- 
manding gestures on passing the packs. **Some- 
one hurt," said Harry, "or Shorty wouldn't lose 
his poise in that manner.** I fully acquiesced, 

193 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

for never had Shorty shown any such emotion 
before. Down the slippery hills and up the icy 
heights of the glacier Shorty rode, now dipping 
into an icy ravine, again appearing silhouetted 
on a miniature peak or divide of the trail. 
Finally he came within hearing, and on passing 
Jimmy, the cook, he yelled vociferously: *'Spur 
up the knotheads or we'll never get off this 
glacier tonight." And then as he swung behind 
a couple of the packs in front of us and faced 
right about, "G'lang King; Giddep there, Crop- 
pie, dang yer ornery hides; ye'll sleep on this 
glacier tonight if ye don't quit yer pussy-footin' 
— slide along!'' We in the rear spurted up a 
little, but we weren't at all jealous of the risk 
that Shorty took in 'loping over the ice in his 
spectacular ride. 

We got off the glacier in four hours, and 
reached land opposite the end of it in five hours, 
one hour shorter than our time going in. We 
reached Skolai Pass at 6:30 p. m., in good 
weather, and camped opposite that grand sen- 
tinel, James Mountain, named, as before stated, 
in honor of my co-worker on this expedition, 
Harry C. James. 

The next three days' travel to McCarthy were 
uneventful. We traversed the same route we 
took going in — via Clark's roadhouse, Mc- 
Cloud's, Spruce Point and Shorty Gwin's. Altho 
we had planned on taking another goat hunt 
from Clark's while coming out, yet the conditions 

194 




.s 



HOMEWARD BOUND 

were not favorable, so we passed it up. Near 
Shorty's, when we were about to recross the Ni- 
zina, a young miner walked up, carrying rubber 
wading boots, saying he intended to ford the 
stream. But it looked so dangerous that we in- 
vited him to climb on one of the horses behind 
the pack, which he gladly did. When in the 
middle of one of the worst channels his horse 
lost its footing and went down. The young 
miner went into the stream feet first and half 
swam and half floundered down to my horse, 
which he grabbed with much vigor. He climbed 
on behind me, and Belle, my good saddle horse 
that had been so faithful on my entire trip, 
pulled us both ashore, much to my comfort of 
mind. He was a 200-pounder, and I 170, which, 
together with my gun and other belongings 
brought the combined weight that Belle carried 
in that roaring torrent to about 400 pounds. 
We reached McCarthy in a rainstorm at 4 
p. m., September 17th, after an absence of thirty- 
nine days. An epitome of the time consumed on 
the entire trip is: Denver to Alaska and return, 
sixty-nine days; actual hunting, twenty days; 
on way from McCarthy to farthest camp and 
return, fourteen days; laid up for rain and lost 
horses, five days. On our total trip we traveled 
7,200 miles, including pack travel, at a cost of 
about $7,200 — ?i,8oo for each person, or $1.00 
a mile. For four persons, and with such a splen- 
did and complete outfit as Cap Hubrick gave us, 

195 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

his price was very reasonable, as $2,500.00 was 
the price charged by other outfitters for one 
man, for a 40-day hunt. 

On the evening of our arrival in McCarthy, 
after separating our belongings and packing up, 
we repaired to McCarthy's only refreshment 
parlor. The country being **dry'' since the pre- 
vious January, soft drinks only were dispensed, 
but they came high enough to remind us that we 
were in the Far North. Coca-Cola and other 
5-cent drinks in the States sold here for 25 cents 
— in fact, there is no drink sold over the bar at 
McCarthy for less than 25 cents. As we sat at 
a table imbibing one of these mixtures I noticed 
seated at the same table, to my right, a big, 
square-shouldered man of 225 pounds or more, 
whose good nature soon gave expression to a re- 
mark, which led to a very interesting conversa- 
tion. He had been thru both the Klondike and 
the Shushanna stampedes, and even at present 
was engaged in pursuit of the elusive color. He 
looked about 50, but said he was 66, and that he 
could turn a handspring or swim a cold stream 
as well as ever. And I believe him. His name is 
T. W. P. Smith, and his home at that time was 
Shushanna, Alaska. 

A most pleasant surprise of our return trip 
was the extension by Superintendent Corser of 
the Copper River & N. W. Railway, of the same 
special railroad courtesies returning as we re- 
ceived going up. This beautiful little private 

196 



HOMEWARD BOUND 

car that was ours on the railroad journey back 
to Cordova was a delight and a luxury to us all, 
and we shall always remember Mr. Corser*s lib- 
erality and kindness in tendering us the use of it 
with the most pleasant thoughts. 

While waiting for the boat at the Windsor 
Hotel, Cordova, Alaska, I was presented with a 
card bearing this inscription: 

THEODORE R. HUBBACK, 
Pertang, Jelebu, Fed. Malay States, 
Via Singapore. 

Mr. Hubback was on his way, in the company 
of a friend, Mr. Keeler, to Kenai Peninsula for 
moose and sheep. Having killed rhino, hippo, 
elephant, saladang and about all the smaller 
kinds of game found in his country and there- 
abouts, he now came to the United States on a 
trip consuming two months from Singapore to 
kill moose. He was a sportsman thru and thru, 
and since then I have received correspondence 
telling of his great success on the peninsula, 
where he secured beautiful specimens of moose 
and sheep, and some wonderful photographs of 
wild bears. He is the author of a couple of 
interesting books on the subject of hunting big 
game in his country. 

After a long delay at Cordova waiting for our 
boat, we finally boarded it for the journey home, 
a very pleasant one, both by boat and train. We 
arrived in Denver on October 4th at 7:45 p. m., 
after an absence from home of sixty-nine days. 

197 



Eleventh Qhafter 



OUTFITTING HINTS 



ELEVENTH CHAPTER 
OUTFITTING HINTS 

A S will be seen by the accompanying list, sev- 
'^ ^ eral articles that were taken to the North 
were, at the advice of our guide, Captain Hubrick, 
never carried into the hunting fields, but left at 
McCarthy until our return. I don't believe, 
however, there was a thing forgotten, or any- 
thing omitted from the list that would have 
added in any measure to our comfort or effi- 
ciency. While I have always been a great 
admirer of the air beds, having used them con- 
tinually for twenty years (and took one along on 
this occasion), yet I was fearful before leaving 
on the trip that my rheumatism might not go 
very well with them, so I took my eiderdown 
robe, which I have used as a cold-weather bed 
for years. There is nothing to beat the air beds, 
even in ordinarily cold weather, as they are com- 
pact, durable, rainproof and positively the 
easiest bed to sleep on that can be found. I 
usually inflate them only sufficient to allow my 
fist to press the upper and lower walls together 
when it is forced down hard in the middle of the 
bed. If inflated much more than this the bed is 

20 1 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

not so comfortable. In fact, less inflation than 
that mentioned is better than more. 

While a hickory cleaning rod might be con- 
sidered as rather awkward to carry on such a 
long trip, I didn't find it so at all, as it fit very 
nicely into my rifle carrying case on train and 
boat, and into my saddle scabbard while travel- 
ing between camps. 

While we all took mosquito head nets, I don't 
believe any of us used them more than once or 
twice. While the mosquitos and flies were bad 
at times, especially during the early part of our 
trip — and on Harris Creek — the trouble soon 
passed without very much notice by us. 

I was fortunate in buying a Filson cruising 
shirt before leaving, for without it I would have 
been somewhat handicapped. This is not a 
shirt at all, but more of a coat, but it serves the 
purpose under any name, for it is a comfort and 
a blessing on any trip. It is cravenetted, and 
therefore reasonably waterproof, is of very heavy 
wool, with all kinds of handy pockets, each 
clasped, and has even the game pockets in rear. 
I believe I wore it every day, and it is yet about 
as good as new. 

Ordinarily, one can use about the same cloth- 
ing on the White River in any summer or fall 
month as he would wear a month later in the 
big game fields of Wyoming or Montana. This 
also applies to footwear. If I should go there 
again I would take one pair of ordinary 8 or lo- 

202 



OUTFITTING HINTS 

inch hunting boots, one pair of light boots with 
rubber vamps and soles, and one pair of over- 
sized ordinary walking shoes, nailed with Hun- 
garian hobs. The boots also should be so 
hobbed. Keep your hunting boots light. No 
such boot, unless a man is a giant, should weigh 
more than 2^2 pounds to the pair. An ordinary 
pair of walking shoes weighs two pounds, and 
when this weight is doubled, as often it is, you 
are lifting too much at each step. I would 
rather have to buy a new pair of boots for each 
trip, if they were so light that Td wear them 
out that quick, than to burden myself with 
4-pound boots that would last a lifetime. Three- 
pound boots would be preferable to 3J/^-pound 
if you can get them. I am speaking now for the 
average-sized man (I weigh 170 pounds). 

The shoes I have mentioned are for sheep and 
goat hunting and for long caribou and moose 
hikes without the horses in dry country. The 
rubber-vamp boots mentioned are for boggy 
country while hunting moose, caribou or bear, 
while the leather boots are for hunting in dry or 
cold weather and for riding. 

Don't forget the rubber folding drinking cup. 
I have used it for twenty-five years continuously 
and have never left it behind yet. It lies flat in 
your pocket and occupies practically no space. 
Closing as it does, it is always perfectly clean on 
the inside, however dirty looking the exterior 
may be. I, like others, have gone thru the cart- 

203 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

ridge-belt and the stooping-to-drink days, there- 
fore am not ashamed to drink out of a cup in 
the hills any more. 

It was very lucky for me that I took one pair 
extra of each of the eyeglasses that I wear — the 
reading and the long distance — as I had only 
gone a few miles from McCarthy before I broke 
my reading glasses. I found it mighty handy, 
therefore, to resort to the extra pair for the re- 
mainder of the trip. 

Binoculars are a necessary article on a trip of 
this kind. I have used several pairs during the 
past twenty-five years. About twelve years ago 
I purchased a pair of Alpine binoculars from 
Paul Weiss, the manufacturer, of Denver, and 
have never used any other make since then. 
These are of 8 power, but after seeing Mr. 
Weiss's new 7-power military glass, I believe it 
will be my next buy. After it has once been 
fitted to the eyes, no adjustment is necessary 
for distance, as it is good then for all distances 
from 10 feet to infinity. 

As our guide's rate for the trip included the 
furnishing of provisions, tents, etc., we didn't 
have any of that to arrange for, except that 
Harry was thoughtful enough at Seattle to pick 
up a large quantity of chocolate, raisins, etc., 
without which our daily lunches while hunting 
would have been dry, indeed. 

A list of the articles taken by me on this trip 
is appended: 

204 



OUTFITTING HINTS 

I .30 U. S. Winchester chambered for the '03 ammunition. 

1 .30 U. S. Winchester chambered for the *o6 ammunition. 
120 rounds *o6 Service ammunition, spitzer bullet, 150-grain. 
120 rounds '03 ammunition, soft point bullet, 220-grain. 

*i .22 Stevens pistol, 12-inch barrel and holster to fit over 
saddle horn. 
*2oo rounds ammunition for same. 

2 non-leakable oil cans for 3-in-i oil. 

2 rifle barrel cleaners — one hickory rod and one leather pull. 

2 tarpaulins. 

I pneumatic air bed. 

I eiderdown sleeping robe and canvas cover for same. 
*i 8x10 wall tent (3-foot wall). 
*i 7x9 wall tent (2-foot wall). 

1 7x7 tepee with canvas floor — my sleeping tent. 

*i large canvas duflPel bag, 48 inches long and 26 wide when 
laid flat, and draw rope. 

2 small canvas duffel bags, 20x30 inches, to fit in large bag, 
one on top of the other laid down. 

2 very small canvas bags, 12x18 inches, to hold smaller 
knick-knacks, hard articles, etc. 

I pair Alpine binoculars. 
I 3-A Eastman kodak, fitted with Goerz lens. 
200 3-A films, purchased fresh from the Denver Photo Materials 
Co. 

3 pairs gloves. 
I Stetson hat. 

I light corduroy cap with earlaps (never used). 

I pair Outdoor Life hunting scales, weight ^ pound. 

I mosquito head net. 

I suit Gabardine cloth, pants cut oflF 2 inches above ankles, 
and laced over calf (seldom used). 

I suit, cast-off gray wool business suit and extra pair of 
trousers, both pairs of trousers reinforced where needed 
and cut short below calf, to lace over calf (used almost 
continuously, alternating the coat with the Filson cruiser 
shirt). 

205 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

I Filson cruiser shirt. 

I leather vest with sleeves (never used). 
*i Burberry raincoat. 

6 pairs heavy woolen socks. 

I pair old Russell Moccasin boots, 12-inch. 

I pair new Russell Moccasin boots, 12-inch. 

I pair Cutter boots with rubber vamps. 
*i pair walking shoes with Neolin soles, for light work. 

3 suits woolen underwear. 

3 woolen shirts. 

I aneroid barometer 

1 Jersey skull cap. 

2 rifle scabbards. 
Needle and linen thread. 

Absorbent cotton, medicated gauze, Sloan's liniment, Hen- 

kel's pills, peroxide, etc. 

Fishing line, leader, flies. 
I small handy tool kit. 

I round, small French plate mirror for shaving. 
I Marble matchbox. 

Safety pins — some very large for pinning blankets. 

Lumberman's calks. 

Hungarian hobnails. 
J^ dozen Marble's safety No. 83 hunting knives — one for use 

and five for presents. 
I rubber folding drinking cup. 
I extra pair of my reading and 

1 extra pair of my distance glasses — for emergency. 

2 pairs colored glasses for the glacier and snow traveling. 
*i pair spurs. 

Tooth powder and brush. 
Burr's-threo gun oil. 
Hoppe's No. 9 gun oil. 
Pneumatic bed patching outfit. 
I can Viscol for waterproofing shoes (never used). 
Shaving outfit. 

*Left at McCarthy at the advice of guide. 

206 



OUTFITTING HINTS 

Towels, soap, etc. 
•a strips 3 in. by 7>^ ft. of drill cloth to be used as puttees, 
*2 strips 3 in. by 7K ft* of lighter weight drill cloth to be used 
as puttees. 
I pint Hudson's solvent. 

I outfit of Winchester cleaning solution for removing metal 
fouling (never used). 
50 yards manila >^-inch rope. 
75 yards cotton K-inch rope. 
I ball heavy cotton twine for sewing tents, tarps, etc. 
3 cases Carnation milk. 

There is another article that has been called 
to my attention since returning and which I 
surely would take to that country if I should ever 
go there again. I refer to the Perfection cape, a 
rubberized silk coat reaching just below the 
knees, absolutely rainproof and weighing but 19 
ounces. It packs into a flexible leather case 
4x8x2 inches and can easily be carried in the 
pocket. It is made by the Athol Mfg. Co. of 
Athol, Mass. 



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AFTERTHOUGHTS 




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TWELFTH CHAPTER 
AFTERTHOUGHTS 

'\X7niLE ideas of Alaska and Yukon Territory 
^ ^ are usually associated with obscure visions 
of mucklucks and mushing, blizzards and bidar- 
kas, yet very little of this life was ever apparent 
to us as we traveled thru. True, the double- 
ender used by Stampede Mary in her memorable 
mush to Shushanna (officially spelled Chisana) 
during the gold rush was pointed out to us, and 
I believe the sled dog that Billy the Bear traded 
to Four-Eyed Brown was shown while we were 
in McCarthy; yet, except for a few such sou- 
venirs, we saw very little evidence of the actual 
life of the musher, due, of course, to the fact 
that our pilgrimage there was during the warm- 
weather period. We were, however, told various 
stirring tales of the adventures of those who 
passed hard winters in that clime. Cap Hubrick 
and Shorty Gwin vieing with each other in set- 
ting off the most extravagant displays of super- 
heated verbal fireworks for our especial enter- 
tainment. Of course, neither Cap nor Shorty 



21X 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

ever intended to deliberately "gas*' us — they 
merely formed a mutual resolve at the beginning 
of the trip that we should not lack for entertain- 
ment during the sunless days and the gameless 
days, and, both being capable linguists, as well 
as sourdoughs of many years' standing in that 
community, two more capable men than they 
could not have been selected to charge us with 
the moral, mental and physical atmosphere of 
that region. 

My general impression of Alaska is that there 
are some wonderful characters of men and 
women there, and that the territory contains 
sections, as did other parts of the West during 
frontier days, in which pure sand assays as high 
in the make-up of a man as pure gold. And yet, 
men's lives and brave deeds are sold cheaply in 
Alaska. There the hardest hide covers the 
softest heart. Human life there is filled with 
wonderful emotions — the greatest thrills, the 
deepest pains, the greatest passions, the most 
perfect patience. 

We hunted a country where every high moun- 
tain represented a tentacular ice plaster from ten 
to one hundred miles across it — some single gla- 
ciers containing as much ice as is found in the 
whole of Switzerland. It takes men of strong 
courage and stout limb to live the sourdough's 
life, but years of participation in this work builds 
up the constitution, hardens the muscles, and 



212 



AFTERTHOUGHTS 

makes men of iron out of, sometimes, the most 
debilitated specimens of humanity. 

My advice to all men, as emphasized in Out- 
door Life and personally, has ever been directed 
toward living as much of their life in the open as 
possible. Learn to cultivate a participation in 
some outdoor hobby (if you haven't been be- 
guiled in that direction already) to such an ex- 
tent and with such fervor that it will actually 
infringe on your official and social duties, and 
occasionally be allowed to upset even some of 
your most profitable and highly cherished busi- 
ness plans. Take this hobby home with you and 
treat it as you would your best friend; listen to 
its whims, answer its call and walk with it in the 
open. I care not whether this outdoor pursuit 
happens to come in the form of dangling an 
earth w^orm over an inoffensive and untenanted 
water-hole, or bringing down an elephant in the 
jungle. One is as good for your health as the 
other if you get enough of it. 

Bear in mind that if you would promote and 
keep alive that great organism which you call 
your m.ortal coil, there are a few fundamental 
rules you should observe while straying along 
this here earthly trail. If you don't so listen to 
the call of nature you'll become mouldy of mind, 
yellow of skin, crooked of shoulder and so over- 
wrought and nervous that in the end you will 
not be a fit companion for even a prairie-dog. 



213 



IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 

Remember that the axle-grease that lubricates 
your bearings and liberates the crinkles from 
vour brain isn't taken directly into your nozzle 
by gulps, but in the form of sunny and airy 
energizer it must percolate thru your pores by 
degrees. Send yourself out and into it long and 
often. It's a commodity that is sold by no drug- 
gist, but comes as an elixir from Heaven, flooding 
the whole of the outdoors in its welcoming call 
to you to **come in." 

Forget that your limbs were only made to 
stretch a tailor's tape on or to throw under a desk 
in working hours. Take a new grip on yourself 
and learn that a gun or a rod, when used prop- 
erly, form a wand that will kill more germs than 
Bill Hohenzollern ever let loose in his palmiest 
day. If you will follow the above advice you 
will, by the glow of your cheek, the spark of 
your eye, the spring of your step and the wit of 
your mind, show to those waiting heirs and as- 
signs that it will be a mighty long time yet be- 
fore anything is pulled off of any great interest 
to them. 

In conclusion, I hope my readers will get more 
generally into the habit of writing up their hunt- 
ing trips for publication in the sporting maga- 
zines. Constructing a story is somewhat similar 
to building a house — only many times easier, for 
the reason that you have everything at hand in 
your study instead of having to gather the sev- 



214 



AFTERTHOUGHTS 

eral materials together as a contractor must do 
to finish the job. For instance: Your idealism 
is the architect of your story; knowledge of your 
subject is the foundation of your structure; your 
words are the bricks, stones, timbers, etc. (and 
certainly there is no dearth of these) ; your good 
judgment is the mortar and nails that hold them 
together, and your caution is the shingles that 
cover up the defects of thought and expression. 
Adios. 

THE END 



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